Disk Drive ejecting itself

William,

Been there, done that, but until Apple admits there is a problem, I cannot expect them to provide an update. The last Apple OS 10.6.6 update was Jan 6, 2011, and I was hoping this fix would have been included. It was not. My machine is up-to-date on all software.

And today, after two years of flawless time machine backups (mostly in Leopard), my time machine back up drive just decided to quit. Finder does not see it at all now.

Up until today, I could have lived with the unexpected ejects of my small usb-powered drives and waited for a fix. But now, with the loss of my back-up, I am most likely forced to buy a new drive with the expectations that the very same will happen again soon.

For Apple to blame the problem on faulty drives, insufficient connection cables, or having their own customers have to seek outside recommendations to fool their OS by offering questionable system tweaks and setting changes is not the answer. Nothing I have seen here seems to be a cure all for what obviously is a common problem affecting alot of users. I keep looking for a savior, but it think it has to be Apple. Still, I do appreciate everyone's efforts, and I will continue to monitor this thread for answers.

I would appreciate anyone's suggestion on a replacement hard drive for backups...if there is one.

willygates wrote:
until Apple admits there is a problem

What they admit to the public and what they admit to themselves doesn't necessarily match.

The last Apple OS 10.6.6 update was Jan 6, 2011, and I was hoping this fix would have been included. It was not.

I wouldn't count out it being fixed by the next update until you try it.

OS X 10.6 was released in August of 2006. OS X 10.6.6 was released 17 months later. You can do the math. I'd do it for you, but I don't want to be accused of "speculating" about Apple product releases.

William,

Of course it doesn't match. Apple is just ignoring it for whatever reason.

Leopard was released to the public in Oct, 2007. Snow Leopard in Aug, 2009.

The first post on this thread was by judithnewman on Sep 9, 2009 and it concerns the same problem we are all still experiencing (all five of us that is) to this day.

Oddly enough, that post was replied to by you, among others, most of whom were encountering the same problem. But far as I can tell, it was never resolved. Her last post in the thread was Oct 22, 2009. Looks like she may have just given up.

In any event, 18 months is a long time for an issue like this to be ignored. And that is not speculating, that is just plain fact.

willygates wrote:
Of course it doesn't match. Apple is just ignoring it for whatever reason.

That's speculation on an issue that you can't possibly have any real information about.

The first post on this thread was by judithnewman on Sep 9, 2009 and it concerns the same problem we are all still experiencing (all five of us that is) to this day.

Oddly enough, that post was replied to by you, among others, most of whom were encountering the same problem.

I was trying to help collect information to resolve the problem. I've never had that problem myself.

In any event, 18 months is a long time for an issue like this to be ignored.

Agreed. My point is that we can rarely be sure how Apple feels about a particular problem and when they might fix it.

I have this same problem on both a 2010 iMac and a new Air. I use an Air to backup images from my camera via a CompactFlash reader. The flash reader is unexpectedly unmounted every now and then on both systems, although this occurs much more frequently on the Air than the iMac.

On the Air, it happens too frequently to use the device, so I've been using a workaround -- run a virtual machine with Linux on it, attach the USB to the virtual machine, share a Mac folder with the virtual machine, then use Linux to copy files from the USB device to the shared folder.. Sad state of affairs, but better than not being able to get images onto the laptop.

I've never seen errors from this device under Linux or Windows (real or virtual), and the virtual box is using the same hardware (Air & reader) without any issues, so the problem appears limited to Mac OS.

Hopefully I'm not piling on here...
I have a iOmega external drive that has worked well for a couple years running on FW800. Now it too unsafely ejects itself every couple of minutes in Snow Leopard on my MBP. The same drive when connected through the older "D" plug FireWire or USB2 does NOT constantly eject.

I tried changing the Energy Saver setting to NOT put the hard disks to sleep when possible and it had no effect whatsoever.

Thinking it might be a bum cable, I have a new one on order but this cable has not been abused.

It's a PITA to have this important disk run so slowly, but at least I can get at it with either of the older, slower connections.

The new FW800 cable arrived and that seems to have solved the problem for me anyway. I guess these cables are less rugged than they seem. The original cable looks fine. No kinks or abrasions of any kind.
Go figure.

JB

Just wanted to add my name to the list.Bought a iMac Dec 2010.Bought an Iomega 1TB HD for back up.The HD kept ejecting itself.I've spent hours trying all fixes listed,tried different USB ports,different cables etc, but no joy.I even took my
iMac back to the store for a one-on-one check.Everything looked okay,except the employee said I should do the back up at home.He wouldn't let me try at the store because it takes a while for the first back up.Of course disk ejected again at home.

I'm waiting for an update before attempting another back up.

Hi Biggles1961:
The only thing you have not checked is the drive itself. Do you have another external drive you can attach? I don't know that you need to go to the effort of a full backup but connecting it, making some folders, copy some big files back and forth, etc. Maybe start a big file download and direct it to the external drive If the iOmega gives up and the other test drive stays attached, you will have your answer.

I have several other external drives, none very new. Only the iOmega had problems and it was only with the FW800 cable. When I bought mine (back when you bought yours), the 1TB drives had questionable reviews compared to the smaller 500GB drives. I went with the smaller drive.

I don't think you're dealing with a general operating system issues. I suspect that like me, your problem is likely the drive itself.

add me to the list.... I'm not very technical, but I get the same disk eject error trying to copy over my video camera files on my Mac Pro (2006) running 10.6.6 but I do not have the problem with my Macbook Pro (2010) running the same. Clearly there are a lot of diff btwn the machines in terms of HW..I also have a lot more drives on my Mac Pro, etc. I've tried the disk repair stuff mentioned by many but it doesn't seem to work...

Can't pin down when this started happening either..but it was pretty recent..within the past month or so.

How do you get through to Apple at no charge if your AppleCare ran out already???

Apple has released [10.6.7|http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1363] but in http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4472 they didn't mention this problem.
So I assume they have not fix this ._.

Also, my partition still in trouble ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼
Every time I using Disk Utility Repair Disk, it always end with sentences "updating boot support....etc". I'm waiting for about 10 minutes, the progress bar is not even moved then suddenly.... eject again.

I should share a quick experience I recently had with a 2nd generation Drobo, hooked via USB to a late 2009 MacBook.

I have been having disk ejection problems for months, too, and have been unable to do things like import video from my HD camcorder memory card without it ejecting. It happens on both of my Drobos, and swapping cables, etc. did not help.

After ever eject, I run Disk Util to verify the disk. No problems were found. I decided to run AlSoft Disk Warrior to verify the disk (doing a "Rebuild" and then seeing the preview it generates before you accept and write changes). During this, it ejected.

When my unit rebooted, the drive (a 1.1TB virtual drive in my Drobo) was toast. DW could not repair. AlSoft support spent most of the day remoted in to my machine, examining sectors, and they concluded that the directory had been zeroed out and was unfixable.

I talked with AlSoft and Data Robotics. The AlSoft softwre shouldn't have done it. Drobo shouldn't touch data. This would leave the Mac OS X bug...

So I lost 1.1TB of data. I hope this is resolved. I have been unable to work on video projects for months now.

I doubt its OS bug for the simple fact that my Macbook pro data transfer works fine but my Mac Pro desktop does not...same level of OS.

I just tested on my iMac too and it works fine...just my 2006 MacPro doesn't work. I'm in the middle of trying to isolate my root cause by shutting down all my internal and external drives and trying to copy files onto each one, one by one. So far I continue to get the same error with every single drive even when all the other ones are disconnected.

One thing that bothers me that I discovered this morning is that my boot drive permissions will not completely repair themselves even after a repair operation...At the end of the operation, it still shows certain things not repaired or unable to repair....as well as stuff that is repaired during the process...but then repaired again each time I run it...strange... My next step, which I hate to do, is to drop a completely fresh copy of Snow Leopard on one of my drives...clean...and try the process again...

Anybody see any faulty logic in my process?

by the by, I upgraded to 10.6.7 and problem still exists.

Further testing producing interesting and perplexing results....

Even with a clean OS install and all other drives disconnected still will not work on my Mac Pro....

However, doing a direct file transfer of data from my Macbook via my home wireless network to my MacPro has no issues...works perfectly.

Now I'm back to thinking this is in fact and OS related issue but only manifests itself based on your hardware configuration.

Anybody have any thoughts, directions?