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User profile for user: Noodle-head
Noodle-head Author
User level: Level 3
686 points

The volume could not be ejected because it is currently in use

Hello
Can anyone help me with this? I regularly use external USB and Firewire hard drives. It is not uncommon for me to get this message at times when it appears to me that nothing at all is open or in use on a particular drive. Right now I have a 500 GB USB drive plugged in. I shut down every application I was aware of. I cannot think of anything on that drive that is "in use." Like I said, this happens once in a while with different drives and I feel stuck. I have Activity Monitor open and am looking for something obvious but don't know quite what to look for. Disk Utility gives me the same message. Any clues; help?
Thanks.

Mac Pro & Powerbook G4, Mac OS X (10.5.8), Leopard runs on my G4 Powerbook!

Posted on Feb 22, 2010 8:36 AM

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User profile for user: planb77
planb77
User level: Level 7
32,434 points

Posted on Feb 22, 2010 8:43 AM

Hello Noodle-head,

I believe several users run into this issue when they have external USB or Firewire devices connected to their Macs. Many times, you may have closed all running applications and processes that were tied to or with the device, but sometimes Finder is still has running processes tied with the device, so it may be a good idea to kill all the current Finder processes and then try ejecting the device once again.

Otherwise, a work around for force ejecting your USB or Firewire devices can be found in this article.
http://www.macyourself.com/2009/08/07/fixing-os-xs-the-disk-is-in-use-and-could- not-be-ejected-error/

B-rock
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User profile for user: planb77
planb77
User level: Level 7
32,434 points

Feb 22, 2010 8:43 AM in response to Noodle-head

Hello Noodle-head,

I believe several users run into this issue when they have external USB or Firewire devices connected to their Macs. Many times, you may have closed all running applications and processes that were tied to or with the device, but sometimes Finder is still has running processes tied with the device, so it may be a good idea to kill all the current Finder processes and then try ejecting the device once again.

Otherwise, a work around for force ejecting your USB or Firewire devices can be found in this article.
http://www.macyourself.com/2009/08/07/fixing-os-xs-the-disk-is-in-use-and-could- not-be-ejected-error/

B-rock
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User profile for user: Noodle-head
Noodle-head Author
User level: Level 3
686 points

Feb 24, 2010 2:37 PM in response to planb77

Hello and thanks to: planb77; WZZZ; and Fortuny. (Sorry Fortuny but after marking helpful on planb77 and WZZZ, your post no longer gave me that option, it changed to only give me the option to click solved. Go figure.
Anyway...

planb77 - not sure how I would “kill all the current Finder processess” but the link you provided sure spoke directly to the issue and, though I have not tried the Terminal force eject as yet (next time I get stuck I will) I was pleased to read that it is an issue and Apple is hopefully addressing it.

WZZZ - that was helpful, knowing now that mdworker is associated with Spotlight. I have discovered Spotlight to be the culprit behind a few mysterious pauses, halts, humms and what seemed like meditative moments. I’ve since learned to set aside down time to dedicate Spotlight toward the indexing of a given drive, rather than try to work while it is working..

Fortuny - (Stefan) I am reading the comments by the reviewers and the developer. This thing sounds scary and fantastic. I’m going to try it out. Thanks for the tip.
noodle- -head ...de... LighT...ed
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The volume could not be ejected because it is currently in use

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