judithnewman

Q: Disk Drive ejecting itself

My Time Machine disk drive has been "ejecting" itself since I installed Snow Leopard. I'm not unplugging it, or turning it off. I'm not touching it.
I'm getting the following error message:
"The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off."

My question is why would a disk drive be "ejecting" itself. I've turned off the auto backups, and unselected the drive as the backup disk. It is still "ejecting" itself which leads me to believe the problem isn't with Time Machine but with something else - something connected with Snow Leopard because this wasn't happening five days ago before I installed SL.

iMac5,1 Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Sep 9, 2009 5:40 PM

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Q: Disk Drive ejecting itself

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  • by tingotanca,

    tingotanca tingotanca Jun 25, 2011 12:44 AM in response to MUNJ
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    Jun 25, 2011 12:44 AM in response to MUNJ

    That doesn't explain why some people experience the "eject" problem with their FIREWIRE drives, or, as was the case before I found a workaround, with both USB and Firewire drives (harddisks or CD/DVD players).

  • by tingotanca,

    tingotanca tingotanca Jun 25, 2011 12:47 AM in response to xefned
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 25, 2011 12:47 AM in response to xefned

    Exactly. Follow-up to my posts some weeks ago discussing long vs. short cables (or rather, as I called them, weak vs. strong connections): I haven't had ONE SINGLE "eject" since reorganising all my cable connections.

  • by HPMW,

    HPMW HPMW Jun 26, 2011 1:47 AM in response to judithnewman
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 26, 2011 1:47 AM in response to judithnewman

    I have been facing the same problem with my MacBook over the past month and finally decided to come here to check whther it was just me.

     

    I like others have an "imation" portable hard drive and I'm trying to copy files from my Mac to the device, but alas I continually get the same incessant message: that I failed to eject the disk properly.

     

    As many here have rejoiced in the apparent fix with the update to Mac OS 10.6.8, I am still having the same problem even after installing the new update.

     

    Is anybody else having this issue despite updating?

  • by brian273,

    brian273 brian273 Jun 26, 2011 2:37 PM in response to HPMW
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 26, 2011 2:37 PM in response to HPMW

    I also had no luck, with a Toughdrive, after updating to 10.6.8. In fact it seems worse - previously the disk was being ejected only if I tried update Time Machine backups otherwise it stayed on connected. Now it gets ejected after 3 - 4mins even if I haven't tried touched Time Machine!

  • by iMac39,

    iMac39 iMac39 Jun 28, 2011 3:14 PM in response to brian273
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 28, 2011 3:14 PM in response to brian273

    I guess I will add my 2 cents..

     

    I have been having this problem for several months now.. and it is really frustrating.  I have an iMac 24 inch desktop, running Snow Leopard 10.6.8.  Not sure exactly when this problem started, but it seems to happen about 10 or 15 minutes after powering on.  I am using a WD MyBook USB connected external drive as my TM backup device, and suddenly for no reason, it disconnects itself.  It will then try to reconnect itself, only to abruptly disconnect. It does this several times, then it is gone.  Actually, the first time it happened, it managed to trash my HD beyond repair. I am now using a different WD HD, and it is still happening.

     

    My system, as well as the external WD drive are connected to a UPS, so I am assuming that this acts more or less like a big battery backup and also voltage regulator.. so, I don' think the issue is power related.  And judging by all the posts here, it is obviously a common problem.

  • by tingotanca,

    tingotanca tingotanca Jun 29, 2011 10:19 AM in response to iMac39
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 29, 2011 10:19 AM in response to iMac39

    I hate to keep on preaching for my own chapel, especially when I have strictly nothing to gain from it, but here's an excellent article published yesterday on MacFixIt/CNET:

     

    Understanding cabling limits for high-bandwidth systems

     

    Among many considerations, from the author himself in the article's Comments: "Ultimately if you have a 2-inch cable then the construction does not matter much at all; however, the longer the cable gets the more the construction will matter. Ultimately in a digital system as long as there is no data loss then the quality of the cable will not matter; however, this will become a factor when you require a long cable coupled to high bandwidth applications. This is true for USB, Ethernet, HDMI, Thunderbolt, and numerous other technologies. It's a matter of physics."

     

    May I kindly repeat that after checking my connections and recabling them – that was around May 7th – I haven't had one single drive disconnect, either USB or Firewire?

  • by Sam Homerson,

    Sam Homerson Sam Homerson Jun 29, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Richard E. Cooke
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 29, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Richard E. Cooke

    @Richard E. Cooke: I fully agree with your interpretation.


    In general, a device bearing a certain logo, such as in our case the USB 2.0 HiSpeed logo, simply means that it works with Windows. It has nothing to do with conforming to standards at all.

     

    It is the same with ACPI, HDA, and most other PC standards. Compliance := works with Windows.

     

    All my external hard disks work flawlessly with Windows and Mac OS X up to 10.6.4 and also with the Lion DP4 version, but not with Mac OS X 10.6.5-10.6.7.

     

    The trouble makers all have USB 3.0 ports and obviously use a different USB to SATA bridge chip, which seems to be the culprit here. Nonetheless, the ball is in Apple's court as they broke what worked just fine in 10.6.4 with 10.6.5 and later.

     

    Apple handles differences between their various USB implementations via a dedicated errata file:

    http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/IOUSBFamily/IOUSBFamily-424.4.1/IOUSBFami ly/Classes/IOUSBController_Errata.cpp

     

    The changes between 10.6.4 and 10.6.5 must have been elsewhere, though, as the errata for my MacBook5,1 (MCP79) have not changed.

  • by Sam Homerson,

    Sam Homerson Sam Homerson Jun 29, 2011 10:41 AM in response to tingotanca
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 29, 2011 10:41 AM in response to tingotanca

    @tingotanca: I appreciate your insight and I'm glad you managed to fix your issues through improving the signal quality of your cables.

     

    However, this thread mixes a variety of issues and not all have the same root cause. In my case, the disconnects do not seem to be due to cabling as I have tried several different ones and it makes absolutely no differnce. I also reproduced the issue with two MacBooks, one from 2008 and one from 2011, both having the exact same problem.

     

    Even if the root caue is bad signal quality, which is rather likely, the same hardware running Windows or Mac OS X 10.6.4 tolerates the bad signal quality without a hitch, implying that it can be worked around through less proper but more resilient driver software.

  • by Sam Homerson,

    Sam Homerson Sam Homerson Jun 29, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Gabriele Turchi
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jun 29, 2011 10:43 AM in response to Gabriele Turchi

    @Gabriele Turchi: This is also my observation, although in my case it is with a USB drive. I assume those bridge chips get confused enough through the sudden disconnect to require a hard restart.

  • by tingotanca,

    tingotanca tingotanca Jun 29, 2011 11:22 AM in response to Sam Homerson
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 29, 2011 11:22 AM in response to Sam Homerson

    Note that I agree with about everybody that it's a problem Apple should be fixing. But if we have to wait for them...

     

    Interesting that you should mention two MBPs from different vintages. I got the issue on the 2011 model in this office, but never on the early 2010 one, which has exactly the same brand and model 1Tb external FW drive plugged to it (and is in constant use too). However, this 2010 model never has anything plugged to it with a cable that is longer than 50cm.

  • by Jim Bridger,

    Jim Bridger Jim Bridger Jul 3, 2011 8:23 AM in response to spkane00
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 8:23 AM in response to spkane00

    Wow, can't believe what I'm reading here. But I should since the reason I found this thread is due to experiencing the exact same issues. I'm currently using OSX 10.6.8. Over the past month I've had numerous drive failures due to drives bing ejected without warning. One of the drives, a Drobo with 200,000 photos on it, ejected threes different times and thousands of images destroyed. I originally attributed it to using the Drobo via ISCSI but have since had three smaller external drives ejected AND RUINED. The smaller drives included one GTech firewire and two Western Digital USB 2.0. Ejected drives have happened with a MacBook Pro and MacPro computers. The latest dive I tried to repair via OSX Disk Utility. No luck. Then tried Data Rescue and each time Data REscue begins a scan, the drive ejects. I've not been able to even try and repair this drive due to ejecting. Not sure it's related to the original Eject problem or it's because the drive is now corrupted. This has got to be one of the most serious issues I've ever had with an Apple computer. Destroying data and drives is about as bad a problem as one can have.

  • by appleaphid,

    appleaphid appleaphid Jul 3, 2011 8:45 AM in response to appleaphid
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 8:45 AM in response to appleaphid

    The 10.6.8 update fixed it for me!

     

    I had posted a disconnect-issue with an expresscard SD card reader that connected through a high speed USB port of my Macbook pro. It was so bad that the reader (Pro-Express 7) was essentially unusable (see earlier post) so I did the update anyway.

     

    Solved!

  • by Richard E. Cooke,

    Richard E. Cooke Richard E. Cooke Jul 3, 2011 9:41 AM in response to Sam Homerson
    Level 2 (220 points)
    Jul 3, 2011 9:41 AM in response to Sam Homerson

    @Sam

     

    To display the USB logos legally, the manufacturer has to demonstrate compliance with the standards.  The standards are very specific and demanding, it takes a lot of tests to prove compliance before use of the logo is allowed.

     

    The problem is Marketing people will try and get an edge on their competition by adding meaningless words like "high speed" (we saw this back with USB 1.1 when makers of 1.0 devices tried to imply they were still just as fast). It's up to the consumer to read the fine print or details to cut through the sales hype and find out what level of compliance they actually achieve.

     

    Worse, there are factories willing to put fake "UL" or "CSA" safety marks on their products, so it should hardly be surprising they are also willing to put on fake "USB 2.0" logos!

     

    I need to do more testing before I can certify 10.6.8 fixed my drive eject. If you read back 6 pages or so you will find that we had only found 1 maybe 2 USB drive chips that failed in the manner of "while working" the drive ejects, usually when writing (not reading) large amounts of data (>200 Gb). And un/replugging the drive brought it back.

     

    Other posters that had to cycle power to the drive or computer found they had a HARDWARE problem that is not related to this thread at all.  Many others found their drive had a KNOWN defect and had to go back to place of purchase or the mfr to get it fixed. We found a couple with overheating drives or computers, and at least one that had a cabling problem.

     

    If you want help (especially from me) then you have to do this, in order:

    - Google your drive make and model, see if anybody else is having the same problem. If you are the only person on the planet with drive "XYZ" with a problem then chances are you have a hardware problem in the drive, computer, hub, or cables (not necessarily in that order).

    - if there is a support site for the drive post a question there about your symptoms (and read/search previous posts). Again, if your the only person in the world with a problem...

    - Search this thread for you drive make (not model) to see if there have been other problems with their products (actually this is a good idea for a google search too). I tell clients to do this BEFORE they buy something for the first time. This comes under "buyer beware" I think.

    - Do some experiments. Try the drive on other computers, different cables, no hub, different USB jacks. Try READiNG only small files, then large. Try WRITING small files, then large. Try it after it's been OFF overnight. Try it after the computer and hub have been OFF overnight. Try it with nothing else running on the computer. Change the drive format, does it matter if it's FAT32, NTFS, or OSX Journaled?

    - post your symptoms and test results here. If you want help and not just platitudes and "me too"s you must include

    the drive make, model and any other potentially useful info like date of manufacturer, the disk drive make/model

    iniside. Go into System Profiler and grab all the USB info.

    - Check to see if the drive has the same chip ID as the two we have already found in problem drives. Googling the chip ID sometimes can tell you quite quickly if there is a problem and a fix.

     

    I know this is potentially a lot of work, I go through this process nearly weekly for clients. Their problems are different, but the process is the same.

     

    The only "quick fix" is to find a solution or workaround with Google. I will spend a few hours reading every post even remotely related to a problem, looking for clues to the problem or a fix. In most cases a workaround is acceptable - it depends on how annoying it is.

     

    Without this info all I can do is shrug and say "***** to be you"!

  • by Kari Lassila,

    Kari Lassila Kari Lassila Jul 5, 2011 10:20 AM in response to judithnewman
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 5, 2011 10:20 AM in response to judithnewman

    I've been having this issue for several months now with my WD Caviar Green 500gb. (Was originally a "My Book" but I put it into a new case hoping that it was a power issue). The drive will mount and read on a Windows system well enough but, once transferred back to the MBpro, it begins its self ejection all over again.

     

    I'm wondering if it is a WD issue, a SATA issue or what. My IDE external drive is running like a champ & not a WD drive.

     

    Either way, I'm totally fed up with SATA drives & WD. I'm in the market to find an IDE drive that is more stable & won't let me lose the data I have.

  • by Jim Bridger,

    Jim Bridger Jim Bridger Jul 5, 2011 10:25 AM in response to Kari Lassila
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 5, 2011 10:25 AM in response to Kari Lassila

    Unfortunately I don't think is a particular drive issue. I've had four different drives, all formatted to Mac journaled and all destroyed within the last four weeks. One was a WD, Two were G-Tech, one was a Drobo setup. Not sure what is going on .

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