I have an 04 HSE model and as I was about to get into my vehicle, I grabbed the door handle to open the door and it simply pulled back but did not open up! On a positive note, the door opens up from the inside, but the downfall is that I have to open the window from the driver door or get in through the rear passenger door to open up the driver door.
Also, I managed to remove the inner driver side-panel off the door, but couldn't see what exactly was causing this problem, as well as removing the HEX screw behind the driver door key entry point and tried readjusting the part, but had no luck in fixing it.
If anyone out there has dealt with this problem in the pass or knows how to fix it, I would really appreciate all the help. Thanks once again.

 

Figured out what was wrong with the exterior driver side door handle. It turned out to be the upper door cable, which happen to simply wear out and snap off. Fairly easy to get to it and swap it out. I'll post pics and steps of what I did soon to, so it can provide better details of how it's done for future reference.

 

buy a new latch or else the cable wont work at all. the cable ends up breaking cause the latch is seized. the updated latch fixes the problem.