IMac won't boot with SATA external firewire drive attached

I have an 1T Hitachi SATA drive enclosed in a Macally firewire enclosure. If it is attached either in series with other IDE firewire drives or directly, my iMac will boot only to the Apple icon and will not engage the gear icon. If I disconnect the drive the iMac will boot normally with all the other IDE firewire drives attached. I've troubleshot with both Macally and Hitachi, received a replacement enclosure and have an RMA from Hitachi. Before I send the Hitachi back with the possibility of a replacement not fixing the problem, I am asking whether there is a known problem with external SATA drives in particular. TIA. -Dave

I have the same problem exactly but with two firewire 800 drives attached. Both are LaCie d2 500 gb drives. I have tried each one as the first in the series with no luck. I have not tried to connect with any other type of cable.

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