Originally Posted by notabook

I have a weird problem, not really like yours, but dealing with external hd's. If I leave an external hd hooked up to my computer (usb 2.0) and restart, it'll give me an error everytime, even if the external HD is blank. I have to unplug it for windows to start, then plug it back in after windows has booted up. The only 'slow-down' experiences like that I have gotten is what chupachups suggested but that was eons ago with a old 6 gig 5400 rpm drive.