Final Cut Pro treats my external hard drive as a camera not a device when I try to import. How do I stop this?

PROBABLY BECAUSE THERE'S A FOLDER AT THE ROOT LEVEL WITH A NAME LIKE PRIVATE OR VIDEO OR DCIM THAT THE APPLICATION IDENTIFIES AS PART OF A CAMERA DRIVE.

have a look at this: When Final Cut Thinks Your Hard Disk is a Camera

I've had the same prob with a single file named " AVCHD" placed at the first level on my HDD. I removed it and that's it, my HDD came back again as a device and no more a camera !!