External firewire drive not recognized when re-attached after being ejected

I'm using a Seagate external drive for Time Machine backups. When I need to disconnect the drive from the Macbook's firewire port, I drag the drive icon to the trash/eject icon. When the drive icon disappears from the desktop, I unplug the cable. If I plug the drive in again, the drive responds by lighting up and spinning up, but the icon for the drive never appears on the desktop or in the Finder window. Time Machine doesn't run as scheduled because it doesn't know the drive is attached. If I briefly power down the drive before plugging in its cable, the Mac recognizes the drive and it can be used by Time Machine. Is there a different procedure for unmounting the drive that would eliminate the need to power it off before reconnecting?

Thanks for the reply. The drive is mounted properly when I follow your procedure, same as it was when I powered down the drive. Your procedure differs from what I described in that the drive is powered down before the cable is unplugged. Maybe that's the safest approach. But I was looking for a way to avoid powering down the external drive since that involves unplugging the power connector (i.e., there is no power switch). Any way to avoid the power down?

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