Lot of noise from laptop audio output

I'm getting a lot of noise from the audio output of my Macbook Pro (early 2008) OS 10.8.5 when I connect an external firewire 800 drive that uses a power cord. I get more of the same noise when I connect an external video monitor. The noise is a digital hashy and whiney sound that modulates sometimes as what on the screen changes. If I use my Focusrite Scarlett interface the noise is amplified to the point that I can't work. The noise starts when the drive's power cord is plugged in. If I work off a pocket USB drive there is no noise. This is my work around for now. I'm using a power strip that has noise filtering. I have 2 different studios and I get the same noise in both. I've done a lot of trouble shooting and have narrowed the problem down to connecting a drive with a power cord to the computer. I have tried different drives too with the same result. Is there any hope of fixing this?

Can't say I've ever had any noise when starting the unit up over optical - if your DAC is designed for stereo only then it may be causing noise by attempting to play the 5.1 startup video's audio bitstream which is dolby digital encoded not stereo.

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