Logic 8 freezes when clicking on the recording button (audio)

Question

I am a newbie, switched recently.
When I click on the record button, Logic 8 pauses for more than a minute before starting audio recording normally. The external hard drive where my project files are saved becomes "very active" during the pause and then works normally when audio recording starts.
Thsi happens only on the files I imported from the OMF and Midi files created on my previous DAW (Sonar6).
I tried to record audio in a blank project: no problem at all.
This is not a problem of the external drive spinning off when not used because Logic freezes everytime I click on the record button even if I do it immediately after a previous (very short) recording test so the hard drive does not have to spin back on. Tried on my 3 external drives (2 USB, 1 firewire) same problem.
All my external drives are also used with Windows so they
have the Fat32 format.
Copied a project file to my MacBook desktop: no recording freeze problem!
Might be linked: I am a bit surprised with the project file sizes: 500 to 600 MB each file created from OMF and Midi Sonar exports! (average 5 audio tracks, 5 instrument tracks, I use Stylus RMX for drums).
They were much much smaller on my PC as Cakewalk Sonar files. Are these normal project files sizes with Logic?
Thanks for your help
Bluescat
MacBook 2.2 Ghz
Leopard
Logic Pro 8
Edirol UM 880
Line 6 Toneport UX2
http://www.myspace.com/chrisbluescat

Answer 1

When I click on the record button, Logic 8 pauses for more than a minute before starting audio recording normally. The external hard drive where my project files are saved becomes "very active" during the pause and then works normally when audio recording starts.
At a guess I'd say - is your external drive Mac-formatted or PC formatted? Seeing as you were using Sonar, you've obviously come from the PC. You should not use FAT drives, you should format them to the native Mac format.
All my external drives are also used with Windows so they have the Fat32 format.
Ah. There you go.
See:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7290767
500 to 600 MB each file. Are these normal project files sizes with Logic?
"Normal" is entirely relative. Some people's projects are much smaller. Some are much larger.