500GB My Book slowing down my computer?

I have a 500GB My Book external hard drive and it has worked fine since I got it about 2 years ago. The only issue that I have is that when it’s plugged in and I’m not using it, it will slow down my computer sometimes. Say that I am opening My Documents, (which is on my internal drive) , then I have to wait about 4 seconds for my WD external drive to load. Also if I am starting an installation of a program, then I have to wait for the drive to load even though I’m not installing on to it. This happens quite frequently and I’ve been wondering why this happens. Tasks that don’t require the external drive still make it want to load up anyways and halt everything in that time frame.

Additional notes:

  • I use Windows 7, had the same problem with XP as well.

  • I’m a CS major… so feel free to go as technical as you want with me. :slight_smile:

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