Wont edit or play from external drive

I've been using mac for about 4 years now, and have been making videos (mostly skateboard) during that 4 years. My normal plan of action in making a video is record, dump to my external through the iMovie import and then edit from that same file.
Up until my most recent video which I am trying to make now, this process worked fine. I opened the file right from the external drive, and edited away, no problems. Now all of a sudden I cannot do that (even though my computer is BETTER now then it was during previous videos as I upgraded to 2 GB of ram) now when I open the video from the external, it will play for a second, then completly stop and freezes iMovie. So just to be sure that it wasn't a problem with the program i moved some of the video over to my internal hard drive, and it works fine.
I understand that other ppl have had this problem, but why is it that I was once able to do it, and now all of a sudden I can't. My problem is the fact that the video I am currently trying to edit has about 7 hours of raw footage, and that just wont fit on my internal drive, as the video is about 50 GB and I only have 20 left on my internal.
Just some points on why it doesnt work from my external anymore would be great.

To check the formating you can open Disk Utility, select the drive and along the bottom left it will tell you how the drive is formatted. Or you could right click on the drive (control + click) and get info and this will tell you how it's formatted. You want Mac OS Extended (or Mac OS Extended Journaled). I should image that it is formated this way if you have been using it for some time. However, you mention that you have been using it for 3 or 4 years but your computer is a MacBook- which hasn't been out that long! So what else has changed? What make/brand USB drive do you have? Does it have it's own power supply? Can you copy large files over to it without a problem, in other words- is it only iMovie that doesn't like the drive? Has it worked on the MacBook before? What other USB devices are you using (for the record, Firewire would be a much better choice for video editing). Besides that, for general trouble shooting, I would repair permissions, reset the PRAM (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=2238) and possibly the SMC (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319). It would be a good idea to test the drive and power supply on the "original" computer where you know it works- a bad power supply can give you problems. And of course check the USB cable by trying another that is known to be OK. Finally, if you have Disk Warrior, I would run that as well!
Mike

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I suddenly can't can't read iPhoto library from external drive. I have talked to WD and nohing is wrong with the network drive. I can open images and files from it. But, I can't read in iPhoto Library.

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Just so you know I've done some homework:
I've scoured other Logic forums and found these relevant threads that in the end did not solve the issue. They mostly seem to refer to Logic 8 which does not have this issue.
@ LUG
Thread 1
@ Logic Pro Help
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3 this fellow seems to have a similar problem as I. He drags folders into the loop browser but nothing happens.
@ Apple Discussions
Thread 1
Thread 2

I just installed LP9 and all my loops and samples are on external drives. The drag and drop onto the browser method worked fine and I WAS given the option to move the files or not. The only exception to the above is Ultrabeat samples. They seem to want to be on the System drive.
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pitou wrote:
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https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4
https://bombich.com/kb/ccc4/search/bootable%20volume
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http://www.inxtron.com/information-center/smart-ap-for-external-hard-drives
To make matters even worse, it can only display the above information for the first external drive connected.
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(The '$' is supposed to be Terminal's bash prompt – type in only the rest of the respective line.)
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 1
29 50 13 8
53 67 645 15829
52 53 90 7105
51 52 18 13
Each line reports the following for one connected enclosure:
[temp] [maxtemp] [cycles] [hours]
The drives are reported first USB, then FireWire drives, each in the order of first connection / mounting.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 2
WD-WCA**************
WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
WD-WMA**************
WDC WD30EZRS-00J99B0
Each drive gets two lines reported, first the drive's serial number ("***" blocking out my exact ones), then the drive model.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 3
29 50 13 8
WD-WCA**************
WDC WD30EZRX-00MMMB0
53 67 645 15829
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
52 53 90 7105
5TE09***************
ST31000333AS-00MMMB0
51 52 18 13
WD-WMA**************
WDC WD30EZRS-00J99B0
This combines both of the above.
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disk4
disk1
disk2
disk3
This reports the mounted disk names (referring not to the volume names but to the internal Unix names as in /dev/[drive]); Numbering is in connection / mounting order, the actual sequence is as always USB drives, then FireWire drives.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 6
USB
1394
1394
1394
This reports the connection interface for each drive in the same sequence as all other commands.
$ /Applications/MacpowerAP/GetSMART 7
MPT934DS1.20.0104.00
MPT934DS1.20.0104.00
This might report the firmware revision or something like that.
These are the commands I know about, and they apply only to the "Smart AP" software supplied with current inXtron enclosures, but it may be possible that other brands use it as well.
I have not been able to identify information about the self-test (early(?) failure warning), but it might be contained as well in the data reported above.
As always, your mileage may vary and you should never do such experiments without FIRST making sure you've got backups of your data and that such backup is not connected during experimentation!
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Wont edit or play from external drive

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