IMac continuously beeps three times when FireWire HDD is attached

Hi there,
Whenever I reboot my iMac while my external FireWire HDD is attached to it, it continuously beeps three times in a row. I detach it, and restart the iMac, and voila, it boots again!
Any ideas why it can't boot while my FireWire HDD is attached to it? It doesn't seem to be a RAM issue as is specified here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2674?viewlocale=en_US

It could be a firmware issue with the firewire drive.
Have a look at the article in this link
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2213

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