Trouble starting my MacBook with an external Hard Drive attached.

Hey guys,
I have A Seagate Free Agent Pro 500Gb Hard Drive. When I leave the hard drive plugged into the USB port and turn my computer on, it gets to the grey screen with the apple, and it just chimes over and over again. The only way to get it to start is to unplug my hard drive from the USB port and then start it.
It's definitely my hard drive causing this, I was wondering if anyone knew why or how to fix it. I would like to start my computer with the hard drive hooked up and not have to unplug it every time I turn it on.
Thanks in advance.

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