Grey 'rolling' screen when using external hard drive

Hi,
I have the mid 2009 MacBook, and recently started having issues when plugging my 500GB Seagate external hard drive into the usb ports. I plug it in, it shows up in finder with the name, but when I click on it to view the contents, the grey screen comes rolling down and asks me to hold down the power button to reboot.
I tried reinstalling Snow Leopard (I'm on 10.6.4) but it hasn't worked.
Would appreciate any ideas.

What are seeing is a kernel panic*:
http://www.macmaps.com/kernelpanic.html
Since it only happens when plugging in your external hard drive, it sounds like either there is a hardware issue with the ports, the drive has specific software that has not been tested with Snow Leopard for connecting the drive, or issue with the cables you are connecting with. Follow my tip for isolating your issue.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

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