boot problem with external HDD

Hi,

I've got an external HDD from LaCie, 500GB, still formatted in NTFS. When the HDD is plugged in my MBP 17" doens't boot. The grey screen on which the apple and the spinning gear normally appear, now stay grey. Any solution to it, apart from formatting the external HDD?

It boots normally when the HDD is not plugged in.

Having the drive attached to the machine should not prevent it from booting even if the drive is formatted as NTFS. Can the drive be mounted if you first boot the MBP and then attach it?

It's possible there may be a defect with the drive structure which is causing your system to hang during the boot cycle. If you have access to a PC, attach the drive to the PC and from a command prompt check the disk.

Use chkdsk X: (where X is the 500 GB LaCie) If it reports back errors, run chkdsk again but this time use the f parameter. ( chkdsk X: /f )

Regards.