Hi ApMax - As this problem obviously does not effect everyone, there must be something relatively unique with your and others systems, which bring about this condition. If it were a universal bug, which would be MUCH easier to determine, it would affect everyone, which is not the case. I would suggest that you, if possible, try to determine what are the common variables that you share with the others, whom you know, who have this problem. Sadly it probably is not any easier for Apple to find the source of the problem than you, in fact probably much more difficult for them. Their test machines tend to be quite clean and quite vanilla. Ours, because they are being used in production, are not.
It must be something, somewhere that is triggering this activity, possibly more than a single direct cause even (a combination of softwares and/or hardwares). I notice that you boot externally and via firewire. Do any of the others, whom you know, also use this or a similar setup, even occasionally?. I have in past years done this, but not for a long time. A possibility of using this setup, is if you or others are booting from different systems from time to time (even occasionally), this could have a negative effect, as not every MacOS X system version handles the hard drive information identically. The changes are theoretically backward compatible, but a problem could arise when an older system is used to boot after a newer modified version of the system has been used with the computer. It could adversely affect any attached drives or partitions, which have been booted with a newer, modified file system. Another thought, it could be related simply to the firewire drive itself. For some reason firewire drives have suffered more bus related problems than USB drives, sometimes causing compatibility problems. These are often connected with the particular hard drive bus makers implementation, of which Apple does not have control, meaning the drive manufacturer sometimes releases a firmware update, or sadly does not do so. Apple does often work with known and understood glitches together with the manufacturers to come up with a solution behind the scenes.
This is only a suggestion. It is the only variable that I know of your system of which there are many millions! Here is the problem. Debugging in today's computer world can be a nightmare, because of the complexities of hardware and software design and interaction. I respect Microsoft highly, as their problems are greater in potential than those of Apple. Apple at least controls both the basic hardware and software, while Microsoft just the basic software. This is one reason why Apple computers are traditionally less buggy, but buggy they are! Do not be too hard on Apple for not fixing your problem. It is not a universal bug by any means, so it must be something interacting in your and others machines that simply does not exist on other users' setups. Apple even with all the resources that they have, could not possibly test out every combination of hardware/software interaction even if they tried, or all we would have would be a Fat Mac to this day. Sorry I could not help more, but this is the direction to proceed, if you wish to get to the bottom of the problem - what are the common variables in the setups of the affected systems.
