booting up with Hard drives connected ?

[fab5freddy]

i am having a hard time booting up my macbook pro 15" LED
with my 2 hard drives connected to the USB port and Firewire 400 port ??
it won't boot up with those devices connected, and once i remove the devices, the computer boots right away...? why is this happening ?

thanks, FF

 

[yg17]

No idea...my iMac does the same thing when my iPod is plugged in, it just sits at the grey screen. When I have my Firewire drive plugged in and powered up, I don't have any problems. It does it with my thumb drive too. I think it's a USB thing :\

 

[robbieduncan]

How long are you giving it to boot? Your Mac will be probing those devices, loading boot drivers (it it has them) and then scanning the filesystems to see if the are bootable...

 

[yg17]

I've let it sit for quite awhile, sometimes 10 minutes and it does nothing. But right after I unplug my iPod, I get the grey Apple and all is well.

 

[DoFoT9]

yea i have at elast 4 startup disks plugged in at any one time and mines fine.. maybe try holding Option on startup???

 

[robbieduncan]

Try checking the startup folder you have selected in System Preferences. Sometimes this seems to get "forgotten" which can lead to long startup times...