Hi Newbie here...

Hi Folks,
I'm a newbie both here and with the Mac, Well sort of! I had a 20" iMac some years ago, went back to a PC and regretted it. Pulling my hair out lately, so brought a secondhand 24" iMac on eBay 2.8GHz 2GB ram, etc. Lion loaded but only Snow leopard supplied on CD. Dual boot with Windows as I still need to run some electronics CAD programs.

Problem one: I have two HDD's in an external USB enclosure but the mac will not pick them up at boot, only if I switch them on after. Did'ent think this normal?

Prob 2: When I run GIMP and select a tool (just about any I think) when I click on the image the tool boxes vanish!

Any help or advise, very welcome.
Regards
Mel.

Addressing number one
There have been a lot of issues with Lion and external drives. I'm not an expert on it but it basically comes down to/is fixed by updated firmware from the drive manufacturer. But those issues are usually described by 'my drive isn't working'.

Are you booting up with the drives not 'switched on'? That seems silly but it is the first thing that came to mind. And after they are 'switched on' do they work normally?

Only input I have is that my 1tb external Seagate used for/with Time Machine is plugged in DIRECTLY via USB (no enclosure). Is that possible to plug them directly, side step the enclosure? I understand if it isn't, you may need to wait for more experienced users b