pah57

Q: External hard drive (USB connected to Mac mini) disconnects during usage

I have a 3TB hard drive (WD green) in a "miniStack MAX Media" external drive enclosure, connected to my Late 2012 Mac mini via USB.

I don't know when it started doing this, but I recently noticed it was unmounting even when it was in use; the error was:

Disk Not Ejected Properly
Eject "3TB" before disconnecting or turning it off.

 

I replaced the USB cable, and saw the same errors.

I moved the HDD to a different enclosure; same errors.

I swapped the HDD to a brand new 4TB WD blue; same errors.

So now I have a new drive in a new enclosure with a new cable, and I'm seeing the same "Disk Not Ejected Properly" messages.

(Incidentally disk utility showed both drives were fine when I ran First Aid.)

 

This leads me to assume the problem is with my Mac mini, which is running El Capitan and is fully up to date with O/S updates.

Any recommendations on next steps to investigate/resolve this problem?


Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Yosemite (10.10.3), home

Posted on Jun 24, 2016 4:21 AM

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Q: External hard drive (USB connected to Mac mini) disconnects during usage

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  • by Lanny,

    Lanny Lanny Jun 24, 2016 7:02 AM in response to pah57
    Level 5 (7,900 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 24, 2016 7:02 AM in response to pah57

    It sounds like your external is drawing too much power. What does your System Report show? Do you have an external power supply for your external drive? Have you tried using all of the USB ports on your Mac?

  • by Rudegar,

    Rudegar Rudegar Jun 24, 2016 7:32 AM in response to pah57
    Level 7 (28,371 points)
    Wireless
    Jun 24, 2016 7:32 AM in response to pah57

    my WD external began doing the same thing

    ended up opening the ext case and put the hd which worked fine in another enclosure

  • by lllaass,

    lllaass lllaass Jun 24, 2016 8:31 AM in response to pah57
    Level 10 (187,938 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 24, 2016 8:31 AM in response to pah57

    I had a "green" HD install in a Rosewell USB enclosure ant it has some problem. If I put in a non-green drive it was OK.

    If I put the green drive in a Toshiba USB enclosure it worked fine.

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 25, 2016 5:24 AM in response to Lanny
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 25, 2016 5:24 AM in response to Lanny

    Both external enclosures have their own power supply, so I don't think that's an issue.

     

    I don't see any glaring errors in System Report; under USB there are a couple of USB devices, including the external drive as NS1066:

      Product ID:     0x1066
      Vendor ID:     0x2537
      Version:     1.00
      Serial Number:     0123456789ABCDE
      Speed:     Up to 5 Gb/sec
      Manufacturer:     Norelsys
      Location ID:     0x14500000 / 28
      Current Available (mA):     1800
      Current Required (mA):     2
      Extra Operating Current (mA):     0
      Capacity:     4 TB (4,000,787,030,016 bytes)
      Removable Media:     Yes
      Detachable Drive:     Yes
      BSD Name:     disk2
      Partition Map Type:     GPT (GUID Partition Table)
      Volumes:
    EFI:
      Capacity:     209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
      BSD Name:     disk2s1
      Content:     EFI
      Volume UUID:     0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B
    ext-4TB:
      Capacity:     4 TB (4,000,443,056,128 bytes)
      Available:     2.99 TB (2,985,421,832,192 bytes)
      Writable:     Yes
      File System:     Journaled HFS+
      BSD Name:     disk2s2
      Mount Point:     /Volumes/ext-4TB
      Content:     Apple_HFS
      Volume UUID:     F43E1D6C-9541-3741-B18F-900DA2E4FB13 

     

    I haven't tried a different USB port so I'll do that now and post an update in a couple of hours.

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 25, 2016 5:26 AM in response to Rudegar
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 25, 2016 5:26 AM in response to Rudegar

    I've changed the case (from miniStack MAX Media to Orico 6619US3-BK) as well as changing the USB cable and the HDD, but each combination gave the same error.

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 25, 2016 5:29 AM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 25, 2016 5:29 AM in response to lllaass

    That's weird but as I mentioned, I switched from a 3TB green WD drive to a 4TB blue WD drive and got the same errors. Changing the enclosure and changing the USB cable also resulted in the same errors.

  • by lllaass,Solvedanswer

    lllaass lllaass Jun 25, 2016 8:38 AM in response to pah57
    Level 10 (187,938 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 25, 2016 8:38 AM in response to pah57

    - Try resetting the SMC and NVRAM/PRAM

    Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

    About NVRAM and PRAM 

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

    - Try starting in Safe Mode

    OS X: What is Safe Boot, Safe Mode?

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

    - Boot to Recovery and repair the startup disk

    OS X: About OS X Recovery - Apple Support

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

    - If it is repairable reinstall the OSX

    How to reinstall OS X on your Mac - Apple Support

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

    - If you do not have a backup use disk utility to restore the internal disk to an external disk so you can try to recover data.

    Then format the startup disk and do a fresh install of OSX

     

    As a test yo can also try installing your current OSX version on an extern disk and see if the problem persists. If it does then that would indicate a hardware problem wit yor mac.

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 26, 2016 2:16 PM in response to lllaass
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 26, 2016 2:16 PM in response to lllaass

    I reset the SMC, and it now seems to be OK

    I say seems because it's been running a backup for about an hour without any errors - I'm hopeful but previously the errors were random (or at least I couldn't spot a pattern) so I'll give it another hour or two before I'm confident enough to say it's fixed.

    Thanks!

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 26, 2016 3:47 PM in response to pah57
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 26, 2016 3:47 PM in response to pah57

    Update: still no errors, so I think resetting SMC definitely fixed it! Thanks!

  • by pah57,

    pah57 pah57 Jun 28, 2016 8:37 AM in response to pah57
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Desktops
    Jun 28, 2016 8:37 AM in response to pah57

    Aaargh!  The problem's back!