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sjw2 Author

Level 1

8 points

Time Machine backup disk won't eject in Big Sur

My Time Machine backup won't eject in Big Sur. I looked on this forum but only found an old thread from 2015 (El Capitan). Time Machine is reporting it finished backup (eg 20 minutes ago), the hard drive doesn't seem to be writing, I have tried ejecting through Finder. but nothing happens. Disk Utility says it is not mounted and the drive is greyed out but it is still whirring and I get the usual "did not eject drive properly" if I manually disconnect. Ejecting through Disk Utility makes it start shutting down but then it automatically starts up again before I can disconnect.

It seems to be an issue for others as well - see the MacRumours forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/taking-a-long-time-to-eject-time-machine-disk.2269534/

I am posting here in case others are having the same problem.

Posted on May 20, 2021 11:05 AM

Top-ranking reply

Old Toad

Level 10

210,913 points

Posted on May 20, 2021 11:37 AM

Boot into Safe Mode according to Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support and test to see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 10 minutes as it's doing the following;

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

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Time Machine backup disk won't eject in Big Sur

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