Ah, Double, you are opening some bad memories about 412/212 thingies, getting the wrong combinations of throttles, fuel valves, starter motors as you describe, and then leaving the starter motor running and not picking it up until you try to get the generator on line. Mumble,mumble...
NJK, read Nick's post. Settling with power, airflow is above the disk and energy is being added to push it down. Top to bottom.
Autorotation, air is coming from below the disk and energy is being extracted from it to make the blades turn. Bottom to top.