External HD Left on...Finder not Responding?

[reubs]

When I left this morning I didn't turn my external HD off. When I got home today and began to access it, I got the spinning pinwheel and an unresponsive finder. I couldn't eject the disk, so everything I had saved since the last time I ejected it was gone (which wasn't much).

Could leaving the HD on and connected be what caused my finder to quit?

 

[mad jew]

Yeah, Finder is notoriously bad with connected volumes like external drives. It's probably best to keep your drive switched off if you're not using it.