External HD connection Protocol

[LukeTruth]

I have a 15" MBP Unibody and a Western Digital My Book Studio HDD that I connect via FW800. If it's already connected and plugged in when I power on my Mac it usually fails to boot up, displaying the gray folder w/ question mark.

My question is: what is the best order for connecting, plugging in, and powering on these two devices?

Thanks.

 

[LukeTruth]

P.S. Related to this, I have heard tell of FW ports getting fried due to "hot-plugging" external devices. Any idea how common this phenomenon is because doing just that has given me the most success when connecting my HDD.

 

[DavieBoy]

It seems to me that your MBP is trying to boot to the external hard drive. I would try to hold the option button while powering on the machine. You will see icons for both the drives, make sure your internal drive is selected. Once booted up go into system preferences, startup disk and make sure that your internal drive is selected for future startups.

 

[DavieBoy]

P.S. Related to this, I have heard tell of FW ports getting fried due to "hot-plugging" external devices. Any idea how common this phenomenon is because doing just that has given me the most success when connecting my HDD.

I have heard of it, but I must do it 50 times a day and never had any issue.