External Hard Drives inhibiting startup

Hey, out of the blue both my external hard drives are affecting startup:
1) Lacie Porsche (Firewire) - when this is plugged in and on, startup is extremely slow, pausing and hanging on blue screen and generally slow.
2) Lacie Porsche (USB and newer) (Time Machine drive) - when this is plugged in and on, video is never triggered, screen stays black and computer does not fully boot up. This can be worked around by holding option and manually selecting boot drive. Then it behaves as described above. Additionally, if this drive is mounted after startup, the machine cannot wake the display from sleep.
If the drives are removed the machine behaves normally, quick and fine.
Thanks!

What is a good brand for external and internal drives. I got WD drives which are insanely crappy. My internal won't let me restart my computer. When I take it out, restart works. One of my 2 external drives broke, had to get another one which doesn't mount half of the time. The 2nd drive is a little 100 GB drive (of 150, not sure now) which doesn't mount either anymore.
I surely won't go the WD route, so which one IS good? External and Internal?

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