Windows 7 startup hangs when external USB drives are powered on

I have a few external (WD) drives.
Starting Windows 7 x64 whilst they are being switched on, mostly result in a hanging bootsequence.
E.g. I got a black screen and nothing is happening. there is no response on alt-ctrl-del, nothing.

The only solution sofar is to shut down the pc (power off), switch off the drives and start again.
After Windows is up and running again, switch on the drives.

Maybe this is a 'normal' situation and there is no real solution for it.
Have to live with it then.

It is a bit annoying though when I shut down Windows and forget to also switch off the drives.

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Maybe the below will help, although I am not sure if it is a hardware issue

Later... :
A -very- long shot...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2848572

but then again, if it IS the above kb article, then there is not much of a better solution than the shut down.

This ?

Sorry for the big screenshots!