writing to an external drive in linux

Open Office version 6.4.4.2
Opening linux (and loading the external drive into it, then loading OO.)Onli part of the external drive appears in OO (the files read in a previous occasion)
Apparently OO remembers early red documents, but does not load the drive itself. Very embarrassing and really a problem. It is impossible to work. My previous version of OO (forgot which one) had none of these problems. Did I miss a step during upgrading?
Thanks in advance; Pythagoric.

Overall you may have better luck with your question in the Open Office forums than here.
OpenOffice? the latest available is 4.1.5
(Or do you mean LibreOffice?)
I’m unclear as to what you are really doing. Are you booting a live distro from a thumbdrive? then starting OO?

I am sorry for giving imprecise information on the libre Office (I wrongly said Open Office°) The data given apply to LibreOffice. Nonetheless the problem presented is real. I will leave soon for one month ad let the problem freeze My copy of LO comes from an update from a previous version and it is probable that it is incomplete or faulty. I will try to uninstall what I have and re-install following the instructions of LO site and try again (I can recover files produced until now) . .

Still not clear as what OS you are using.
Seems to be a disconnect to the external drive. The pathway isn’t being remembered. (possibly)
First is to locate your user profile, this varies depending on OS you are using. Then start LO and it can start fresh. Corrupted profiles seem to be a curse for programs. I’m seeing this issue mentioned across several forums for various programs I use.