Startup Blue Screen

I have an external hard disk attached to my MacBook Pro, and I use it as my Time Machine backup. Recently, when I press the power button to start up my Mac, the process will stall at the dreaded "blue screen". This occurs after the grey Apple logo, but before the login screen.
A bit of investigation revealed that if I unplug my external hard disk (by pulling its Firewire cable), the blue screen disappears immediately and I can proceed to login as normal.
I've tried using Disk Utilities to verify/repair the external disk, as well as resetting PRAM parameter, to no avail. I've even used Disk Utilities to completely erase the external disk and reformat it as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", but the problem persists. The external hard disk is otherwise functioning as normal.
Can someone please tell me how I can kill this annoying blue screen? Thanks in advance!

Hi Cameron,
I would suggest trying a Safe-Boot (Hold down shift after the chime), if that works, then it could possibly be an issue with startup items.
If it reaches the blue screen, that means that it has loaded the EFI and the kexts etc. SO it doesn't really sound like anything to do with your HardDrive.
Perhaps take a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1411#symp1.
Might help you out
Good luck

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