External Hard Drives Suddenly being removed:

I have two different external hard drives that I use for storing video (1 Seagate and 1 Western Digital). Over the last few days I have had them powered up one at a time. After about 10 minutes, I receive an alert that says that a “device wasn’t properly removed. Material stored on the device could be lost or damaged.”
The Icon for the Ext. HD has disappeared. A few minutes later it re-appears only to have the same thing happen again in the next 10 or 15 minutes.
The Ext HDs are connected via the firewire ports on the back of the computer.
Per a one to one suggestion, I unchecked the "Put hard Disk(s) to Sleep when possible. It didn't help.
Anyone have a similar problem and know the Fix? It's two different brands of ext. HD, so I think it's my computer and not the ext. HDs.
These are my specs:
Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per processor): 2 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: IM41.0055.B08
SMC Version: 1.1f5

same thing happened to me on my iMac the other day
the WD xdrive (plug 800fw) suddenly stopped working and did not show in finder (worked perfectly for 2 months)
ran a diagnostics program downloaded from WD's site to a PC and everything worked fine
i have another xternal plugged into usb so my guess - PROBLEM W/FIREWIRE!!

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