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Catalina - External Hard Drives repeatedly ejected without cause.

Following the upgrade of my iMac to Catalina 10.15, some of my External Hard Discs are ejecting spontaneously. Those that are being ejected are connected through Thunderbolt 2 ports. Those connected through USB 3.0 ports are performing well. All drives are G-Tech 8TB versions


I have run 'First Aid' on the two affected discs - no problems are detected. In 'Energy Saver' 'Put hard disks to sleep when possible' is unticked. All disks worked perfectly under OS 10.14.


This is the return of an old problem that I thought had been resolved by Apple years ago. A quick web check reveals that it is alive and kicking.


I would appreciate any solutions that others have found to this problem. I would like to avoid spending another $1,000 or so to fix this by having to buy new hard drives. it seems to be software related to me.


Thank you

Peter.



iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Oct 23, 2019 5:32 AM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Nov 5, 2019 3:15 PM

Dear All


The two external hard drives continue to eject spontaneous with no specific trigger event. Only drives connected by Thunderbolt cables suffer this problem. The drives are 8TB's from G-Tech which previously were ultra reliable.


I have installed new cables and reset the SMC.


The good news is that I have managed save all data (14 TB in total) on both drives to new drives and I am now safe. I am double backed up.


One of the problem drives has both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 capability. I have reconnected that drive using a USB 3.0 cable and it no longer ejects.


I have reformatted the remaining problem drive which is Thunderbolt only, to no avail.


So something is wrong with Thunderbolt, that has been exacerbated by the upgrade to Catalina.


Any further suggestions on how to fix the problem much appreciated.


Thank you

Kind regards

Peter

180 replies

Aug 14, 2020 4:00 AM in response to ginagee123

Thank you for the link. This could be a lifesaver in terms of fixing this issue. Very much appreciated. I'll give this a try and see how it goes. :)

Catalina - External Hard Drives repeatedly ejected without cause.

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