iPhabio

Q: Disk not ejected properly

Hi I'm having this issue since I upgraded to Mavericks where almost every time I put my computers to sleep I get the "Disk not ejected propoerly" message and every disk but the system one is not mounted and cannot be found by Disk Utility.

 

I have a Mac Mini late 2009 and a Macbook Pro 15 mid 2009 and I'm having this issue in both machines. Never had any issues before in any of my machines, not in Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion.

 

On my Mini I have two external USB drives and on my MBP I have a SSD, where the system is installed, and a HD (I replaced my optical drive with a bay to install the extra disk).

 

I researched the issue and found a couple of threads where people sugested to buy a 3rd party app that would unmount the disks at sleep and remount them at wake, but I think this shouldn't be a issue, since it never happened with any version of OSX I had used before.

 

Is anybody else having this issue as well? Is there any word from Apple on this subject? Can I hope for a fix?

 

Thanks

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 9:55 AM

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Q: Disk not ejected properly

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  • by ataynay,

    ataynay ataynay May 23, 2014 12:48 PM in response to gvca
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 23, 2014 12:48 PM in response to gvca

    Unfortunately this won't help me.  This is happening with my iPod and my flash drives the moment I plug them in.  It has nothing to do with the computer going to sleep because they aren't connected to the laptop when it goes to sleep.

  • by Podstar,

    Podstar Podstar May 23, 2014 1:22 PM in response to iPhabio
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 23, 2014 1:22 PM in response to iPhabio

    I bought an external power supply for my OWC drive and it didn't solve the problem.  The problem lies in

    the usb 3 programming I think.  I think using a usb 2 hub might work ok though.  I may try this later and see.

     

    John

  • by Richard W J,

    Richard W J Richard W J May 25, 2014 5:21 AM in response to Robster50
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 25, 2014 5:21 AM in response to Robster50

    Huge thanks - early days but it seems to have worked for me too

     

  • by Linda Cameron,

    Linda Cameron Linda Cameron May 25, 2014 6:38 AM in response to Podstar
    Level 1 (28 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 25, 2014 6:38 AM in response to Podstar

    I have the problem with a USB 3 drive (whether plugged into USB 2 or 3) and an eSATA drive. So it must not just be a USB problem.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot May 25, 2014 7:58 AM in response to Linda Cameron
    Level 4 (1,397 points)
    Desktops
    May 25, 2014 7:58 AM in response to Linda Cameron

    Definitely not limited to USB: Mountain Lion and Mavericks improperly eject my eSATA externals, too. It's like Apple added a mean, incompetent bouncer to the OS after Snow Leopard.

     

    BTW I don't have any bus-powered drives in use with the Mac Pro, and it happens regardless.

  • by bebopagogo,

    bebopagogo bebopagogo May 25, 2014 12:39 PM in response to kahjot
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 25, 2014 12:39 PM in response to kahjot

    As I posted previously, I've this same problem on SSD drive cards in a Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis (Sonnet) on both a Macbook Air running 10.8.5 and a new 2013 Mac Pro running 10.9.  This was with two different (but same type) expansion chassis and drives.  And I had the same issue on a USB3 SSD, too, I brought in to temporarily use to avoid down time.  I've tried all the remedies mentioned on this and another similar thread to no avail. I'm not using these drives for Time Machine either.  So, I'm pretty sure this is not an interface-specific, cable problem, or drive type issue.  My only clue is the USB3 SSD had no issue while it was plugged into a Mac Mini server running 10.8.5 OSX _Server_, but when I plugged into the Mac Pro with 10.9, pretty immediately had the same issue we're all having here.  One thing about OSX Server is I think it never spins disks down so there could be some issue here with respect to disk/power management.

     

    Als, I actually had the OWC SSD PCIe card installed in an older 2008 Mac Pro (also running 10.9) and had no issues.  When I migrated over to the new Mac Pro (no internal PCIe slots) and installed the card in the Sonnet Thunderbird chassis, I started getting the "did not eject properly" issue followed by issues (probably due to some type of corruption) writing to the drive.  I wish I had time to do much more considered A vs. B. vs. C testing to try to isolate this issue more, but have to keep up with my real-life job, too. I've always enjoyed not having to deal with too many of these types of issues in my almost 29 years of using Macs.  This is definitely one of the most frustrating.

  • by mmanna1,

    mmanna1 mmanna1 May 26, 2014 2:48 PM in response to bebopagogo
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iCloud
    May 26, 2014 2:48 PM in response to bebopagogo

    Being new to Apple products after using PC's since the mid 1980's, I am surprised that this problem still exists after all the postings on the forum.  I spent an hour on the phone with an Apple Care expert and he thought is was due to a bad cable (I am using a USB 2.0 A to 5 pin mini) from my iMac to the external hard dirve.  I have not been able to find a similiar 3.0 USB cable and have been reluctant to purchase a new USB 2.0 cable.  I had no problem until I upgraded to 10.9.2 and the new 10.9.3 did not fixt the problem either.

  • by slbenfica,

    slbenfica slbenfica May 26, 2014 2:51 PM in response to iPhabio
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 26, 2014 2:51 PM in response to iPhabio

    I'm running 10.9.2 on a 27-inch imac mid-2011, and ever since the Mavericks upgrade I've been unable to complete a time machine backup on my usb3 WD elements 3TB external drive (my usb2 drive was working fine, but I migrated it home and now it's sitting there laughing at me). The disk did not eject properly message would pop up on me every hour or so, and I'd have to manually eject what was left of the disk, unplug it, and start all over. I never got through more than about 2% of a backup (my drive only has c. 300GB used!) before an eject message. Today I found the caffeinate Terminal command suggestion and, even though I have all power save options completely disabled on my machine, I tried it out. Nearly 2 hours later, without any ejections, my timemachine backup is at about 30% complete. I'll update this post when (if, fiingers crossed!) the whole thing completes. But I'm optimistic so far, as this is the only thing that has had any effect over the past two weeks of haphazard fix efforts. My disk not properly ejected message did not have anything to do with the machine going to sleep, though, I'd be in the middle of working on a powerpoint or a word document or writing an email and that stupid notification center message would pop up telling me that my drive had ejected, so there must be some fiddly bugs deep in Mavericks' power management settings that are causing this issue. At least in my case.

  • by Adair,

    Adair Adair May 26, 2014 9:02 PM in response to iPhabio
    Level 1 (10 points)
    May 26, 2014 9:02 PM in response to iPhabio

    Plugging my USB3 Seagate GoFlex portable into a USB2 hub has worked for me. I never had the problem until I switched from a Firewire connection to a USB3 connection.

  • by genius_foo,

    genius_foo genius_foo May 26, 2014 11:35 PM in response to Adair
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 26, 2014 11:35 PM in response to Adair

    It's great that switching between USB3 and USB2 works for some folks, but for the record I tried this early on and it didn't help.  I was using USB2 hubs when the problem started, I got new USB3 hubs, but the "did not eject properly" problem continued.  I also tried using Jettison, which helped somewhat but not enough.  For me only caffeinate has worked well.  I rarely see the DNEP message (maybe 2 or 3 times in 6 months) and my nightly backups are running smoothly.

     

    I should probably go try to bother Apple support about the problem, but (A) that would take a lot of my time and (B) it's an intermittent problem so it would be VERY difficult to convince them it's an actual a problem.  If there is some way to vote for Apple to work on this problem without wasting an afternoon at the Apple store, let me know.

  • by slbenfica,

    slbenfica slbenfica May 27, 2014 4:17 PM in response to slbenfica
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 27, 2014 4:17 PM in response to slbenfica

    An update to my earlier post. After leaving to go work on something outside the office, I came back to discover that my screen saver had kicked on, and, no surprise, the disk had "not ejected properly." I modified the settings to leave all the boxes unchecked in Energy Saver, moved the Computer Sleep and Display Sleep sliders all the way to "never," and then remounted the drive. All this while caffeinate was supposedly running, so that didn't solve the problem entirely. I then put itunes on and muted it but left it playing while I was out for a couple hours. When I came back, the computer still wide awake, the backup to timemachine had finally finished. So I suspect that I could probably uncaffeinate and still keep the disk mounted, as long as the hard drive and display never go to sleep. I'm going to test that hypothesis over the next few hours and see what happens. Obviously, not being able to let your computer go to sleep is NOT a solution to this glitch in the system, but it seems to be the best I'm going to get from Apple (my organization's tech support person has been "on his way over" since last Thursday). Good luck, everyone!

  • by Linda Cameron,

    Linda Cameron Linda Cameron May 28, 2014 7:09 AM in response to bebopagogo
    Level 1 (28 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 28, 2014 7:09 AM in response to bebopagogo

    Is this problem happening on any Mac including the new Mac Pro? I don't know what I will buy when my 2009 Mac Pro is ready to be replaced. The new Mac Pros have no internal space for hard drives and I can't see putting up with this problem with several external drives that I would need. Right now, I only have this problem of discs ejecting with 2 external drives--one a USB 3.0 and the other an eSATA drive. I have 4 internal drives that are no problem and one FireWire 800 drive that I use for Time Machine which is doing just fine.

  • by ataynay,

    ataynay ataynay May 28, 2014 7:11 AM in response to Linda Cameron
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 7:11 AM in response to Linda Cameron

    This is happening on my Macbook Pro, which I bought brand new last fall.

  • by genius_foo,

    genius_foo genius_foo May 28, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Linda Cameron
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 28, 2014 7:37 AM in response to Linda Cameron

    It started for me with a new Macbook Pro purchased December 2013.  I had no problems with a previous MacBook Pro which has OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" on it.  Indeed, there is not enough disk space on the new MacBook Pro for even a modest collection of photos and music and such, so an external drive is a necessity.  Plus Time Machine and other backup drives.

  • by kahjot,

    kahjot kahjot May 28, 2014 9:24 AM in response to genius_foo
    Level 4 (1,397 points)
    Desktops
    May 28, 2014 9:24 AM in response to genius_foo

    genius_foo wrote:

     

    It started for me with a new Macbook Pro purchased December 2013.  I had no problems with a previous MacBook Pro which has OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" on it.  Indeed, there is not enough disk space on the new MacBook Pro for even a modest collection of photos and music and such, so an external drive is a necessity.  Plus Time Machine and other backup drives.

     

    I may have made a comment about this earlier, if so, please forgive the redundancy.

     

    Apple has decided to produce systems stripped of what they probably see as potentially problematic internal expansion options. Some of them (such as Retina MBPs, iMacs) are for the most part sealed and generally cannot easily be upgraded by the user. Main storage and backup storage have to be external. Capabilities that we add to older systems via PCie cards are now also off-loaded onto external expansion boxes.

     

    Under these circumstances, the ports that support all these devices really, really need to work properly. And yet this disk ejection issue has persisted through at least two major releases of the Mac OS, and possibly three: I haven't had time to run a test with Lion yet.

     

    If I didn't have a Mac Pro capable of running Snow Leopard, this would be driving me nuts. I feel fortunate that for me, it is just an annoyance.

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