Mac Mini (or OS X?) and External Hard Drive Issue

[Superman07]

I recently purchased an external hard drive and set it up. I partitioned the drive and have one half acting as Time Machine space and the other as extra storage. It runs of it's own power supply and is currently hooked up via USB2 (I need to get a FW400-->800 cable).

So far I have shut down the machine and it turns off. The drive however I need to turn off manually. However, when I then boot the Mini back up it hangs on the loading screne and will not go t the desktop. However, if I turn on the drive it will then continue the boot sequence.

Do I need to manually eject the drive every time prior to turning off the computer? Do I just need to get in the habit of turning the drive on before the computer? Is there any way around this? Is it because it is looking for the Time Machine path?

 

[geoffreak]

My hard drive does this too. I have it connected via a FW 800 to 400 cable on my current Mac Mini, and had it connected with FW 400 on my old one. Both Minis had this issue that was only present in that one hard drive. I have no issues with any of my other USB drives or my Drobo, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I have no problems with the drive as long as I turn it off when booting up.

I haven't bothered testing if it is a problem on my MBP though.