A normal shutdown automatically unmounts all disks safely. You can, if you like, go to System Preferences > Startup Disk and select the external as your default. When you restart, it will automatically start from that disk.
That is good to know. I went to the startup Disk but the external disk was already highlighted. Maybe that's what happens in this kind of instance. It's not working perfectly using the external drive. It's constantly freezing but I can get a little done here and there. I went to look up disk warrior and got the beach ball when going to CNET. I'll look elsewhere. Thanks, Jon.
