Firewire drives keep disappearing

Since upgrading to 10.5.2, I have noticed some problems with my external Firewire drives.
I can be working on the computer and suddenly I will get a message about "Improper Device Removal" and both icons for my drive have gone from the desktop.
They are also gone from the Disk Utility. This is particularly frustrating as I can see no obvious cause for it. I can leave the computer for hours at a time and it's fine, other times I can be gone for a short while and they've vanished. They also vanish when they are in use, my iTunes library is on one of them for sharing.
It's starting to really annoy me, so can anyone help?
Other similar topics all seem to say that only the icons have gone and the drives are still available for use and show up in Disk Utility. I have to power mine off and on again to get them back.
Thanks,
Pete.

Hello,
This problem is rather difficult to diagnose without additional clues that would - fortunately - come from your system logs.
Try to look in your system logs (Console application) for lines starting like this:
.... kernel[0]: IOSCSIPeripheralDeviceType00::setPowerState (....) timed out after xxxxxx ms
Other questions:
- Are you external drives powered by the Mac or with their own power pack?
- Are you certain you didn't experienced "abnormalities" (spike, surge, drop-outs) in your house main?
If you do need your external drives to be up and mounted all the time - and they are on their own power supply - better to power them through an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply).
This is one lead to investigate on. It may not be the answer.
Rgds,
Thierry

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