003+ ejects drives then force quit...

[lane]

I have a strange but recurring problem.
About 75% of the time when I open PT8 le, something in the communication relay from computer to 003 ejects my external drives and then fails to open for a whole variety of reasons.
Sometimes it switches the drives from Recording to Play/Transfer only, I go to the workspace and switch them back, get a neo-assertation dialogue box on one and then nothing on the other until it crashes PT.
sometimes it results in PT not being able to set a sample rate, I then close and usually have to force quit PT...

The routing is that because I have only a macbook with one FW port, I have my drives daisy chained through the 003+...my TB drive has only one FW400 (2 FW800) so i go from drive, into 003 then into computer. Is there a better way to do this. I would love to know, it's kinda [bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]ty for workflow to have to FQ pro tools at least once, usually twice a day!!

thanks for any tips!

lane

[albee1952]

I suspect you may get better answers by posting in the proper section of the DUC. This section is for Windows users.