Problems with External HDD/Windows 7 Home Premium

I have a new build, here are the specs:

AMD FX-8350

Gigabyte HD 7950

ASUS MAX M5A99X EVO R2.0 Motherboard

Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD

SeaGate 1TB HDD

Kingston HyperX Memory 8GB

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1

Western Digital Elements 3 TB USB 2.0 External HDD

 

Here's the thing:  I built my machine last weekend, and so far everything is fine, except for what I have now determined to be a problem with my External HDD.  Originally, I had thought it was a problem with Windows Media Player, because when trying to play music off the HDD it would lag and skip and generally not work at all.  I had this hooked up to my old rig, which was running Windows XP SP2, and now have it hooked up to my new machine.  When I boot the computer, my boot LED on my Motherboard stays lit, and the machine will powercycle 2-3 times before starting up without a problem.

When I disconnect the HDD it will boot up in one try, fast as hell, without a problem.  I have gone into the UEFI BIOS and made sure the computer isn't trying to boot from the external, but for whatever reason, it will still do this.

Also, the reason this is in the "Windows" section of this forum is becase for whatever reason, I can't access files on the HDD.  I'll open it up, open folders, navigate around, but the second I try to open a file or copy or do anything, it will brick and stop responding.  I'm fairly savvy as far as this stuff is concerned most of the time, but I have no idea why this is happening.  Windows 7 is still new to me, so if there is anything obvious that I'm missing, please forgive me.  Any help is appreciated, because this External HDD has a bunch of music and video files, a lot of which may be difficult or impossible to download/locate again.

When you installed Windows, did you disconnect the HDD?

It wasn't connected until well after windows was installed.

I think I figured it out on my own.  I changed the drive letter on the HDD and stopped WMP 12 from monitoring my music folder.  Transferred my music to my internal HDD and everything seems to be working flawlessly.  For now, at least.  If the problem crops up again I'll be sure to repost something.