Disk Not Ejected Properly -- AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN...

Because I have been getting the error message in the subject for quite some time, I eject (Command E) the Storeva external hard drive, I unplug it, I shut down the Mac.


When I start up I plug in the Storeva. Yet, I still get hundreds of repeating error messages, over and over almost one per minute or less: "Disk Not Ejected Properly | Eject 'Storeva' before disconnecting or turning it off."


It seems to happen after the MacBook goes to sleep.


Apple: please fix this.


MacBook Pro 13.3.1 (22E261)



MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.3

Posted on Apr 16, 2023 9:35 AM

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35 replies

Oct 24, 2023 11:11 AM in response to Jayne De Sesa

This is a problem with Ventura OS. I have two LaCie Rugged 5TB hard drives that I use for covering events. I have two Macbook Pro's and the LaCies work fine on the one that runs an older operating system. They can stay plugged in without ever giving a Disk Not Ejected Properly message. On the Macbook Pro with Ventura OS it happens every time it goes to sleep.


Also the Macbook that I updated to Ventura worked for two years and never showed a Disk Not Ejected Properly message until I updated to Ventura.

Oct 24, 2023 2:49 PM in response to bdvirginia

All I can say is that a week after following instruction from Crucial to move my Crucial drive to a different Thunderbolt port on my MacMini 2018 I have not had any more Disk Not Ejected Properly messages. What they said, the problem also might originate with other connections, either a cable or a Hub. I'd suggest it's worth trying or at least complaining to the manufacturer of the drive that's giving you problems.

Oct 29, 2023 8:11 AM in response to fiberhome

I spoke too soon. Yesterday I had one "disk not ejected properly error" in the morning and this morning I had three. The problem is back and that tells me that it may be a flaw in the Crucial Drive that was temporarily fixed by switching ports, or that it may be something in the Mac or its software. I will be pursuing Crucial's tech support first.

Oct 31, 2023 2:03 PM in response to Jayne De Sesa

I have been having this problem with a 1 Tbyte Crucial X6 solid-state drive on my 2018 MacMini and contacted the supplier. At first, they said I needed to move the drive to a different port on the Mini, which stopped the disk ejection errors for about 10 days before it started again. Yesterday I complained to them again and got the following


"We would like to inform that we would request you to update the system and certain models of internal SATA drives might unexpectedly disconnect from your computer after your Mac wakes from sleep. This can occur if your Mac automatically goes to sleep or if you manually put your Mac to sleep. We would like to inform that to resolve this issue, update to macOS Ventura 13.5 or later." This seems to imply that Crucial thinks it may be an incompatibility between the MacOS and the Crucial drive.


I had already updated to Ventura 13.5, but I upgraded to 13.6.1 and will see what happens.

Nov 1, 2023 11:36 AM in response to BendDan

When I woke my 2018 MacMini up this morning, it had 4 "disk not ejected properly" warnings on the screen, despite my upgrade to Ventura 13.6.1. I have notified Crucial, and they asked me for details, so I think they are working on it. I also will alert them of your comment that this is even worse with Sonoma. (It also convinces me I don't want to upgrade to Sonoma.)


Has anybody got through to Apple?


Nov 3, 2023 10:56 AM in response to reimtime

I have not gotten any more of the Disk Not Ejected Properly messes from my 2018 MacMini regarding my Crucial drive since I turned off all four system setting options under Energy:

• Enable Power Nap

• Put hard disks to sleep when possible

• Wake for network access

• Start up automatically after a power failure.

I'm not sure if I have just been lucky or have somehow found what can fix the problem. I have seen suggestions that the problem may be putting hard disks to sleep when possible, but I'm not sure.

Nov 3, 2023 11:07 AM in response to Jayne De Sesa

Disk not ejected properly:

This can be caused by a shortcoming of your external Bus Powered drive, and not of your Macintosh computer.


When you Mount any ejectable drive, the Directory from the drive is copied into RAM, and the directory on the drive is marked status = checked out (like a library book that has been borrowed from the lending library). The RAM copy is considered the Master copy, and changes that you make while working are made in the RAM copy of the Directory.


When you Eject/UnMount a drive, the RAM copy of the Directory replaces the copy on the drive, and the status of the directory on the drive is marked status = checked IN and Good.


Some external drives get all their power form the USB Bus. Bus-powered external drives should gracefully transition into standby and accept reduced USB power supplied when your Mac sleeps.


Some drives do this perfectly. Other drives do not transition gracefully and do not run only on standby power. Instead of stand-by, these drives disconnect. The problem is, the Directory from the drive has been checked out, and the Master copy in RAM has no way to get back to the disconnected drive.


Some Time later, when your Mac wakes up again, the drive reports 'I just woke up and am ready to connect'. Your Mac is confused because the drive will not CONTINUE from where it left off, so the Mac says "drive disconnected". The copy of the Directory on the Drive is Stale/checked out (not the Master copy). You get the messages "drive not ejected properly" the same as if you had pulled the cables out while running. The correct state of the Directory can not be determined instantly, but requires Disk Utility 'Repair Disk' procedure.


Summary: this is likely a deficit of the DRIVE, not the Mac. If any one of:

• the drive had external power -OR-

• the drive transitioned gracefully to standby -OR-

• the Mac did not sleep, THEN...

...this would likely not occur.

Nov 3, 2023 12:20 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Interesting and helpful viewpoint. So it sounds like something is going wrong with the transition to (or perhaps from) sleep. That would be consistent with my observation that setting the drive not to sleep seems to stop the warning. That certainly could be a problem with the drive -- for example -- not reacting fast enough. What's interesting is that when I searched for "Drive Not Ejected Properly", it was not any single type of drive. In fact, I bought the Crucial SSdrive to replace a Seagate that failed after repeated Drive Not Ejected Properly warnings.


I wonder if the problem might be that that some part of the Ventura upgrade changed the process of triggering sleep enough to go beyond the tolerances of some drives which had worked with Monterey. That could cause the drives not to handle Sleep properly and cause the failures. Would that make switching off the sleep options a solution? Or at least a stopgap?


Thanks for your insight.

Nov 3, 2023 12:30 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

While is good data and expected/true, the problem is wide spread across many drive manufacturers. What has happened here is Apple set a precedent in pre-Venture OSes with sleep patterns and then it changed them. LaCIE, OWC, and other drives now exhibit this problem. A large part of the problem here is that Apple removed the ability to control sleep modes -- is Sonoma on a Mac Studio there are virtually no options to control this.


Rather this has to do with Apple changing sleep behaviors in the OS that do now work well with Thunderbolt connected NVME drives, which are not considered classic removable USB 'thumb drives' drives. Apple could address this with a fix by seeing what device is mounted and control sleep of that port accordingly. If PCI-EXPRESS, then do NOT sleep the power modes. If USB, then sleep aggressively.


I have had to resort to using an application called Amphetamine (was Caffeine) and set the 'Drive Alive' mode to prevent sleep. All the problems went away. It has nothing to do with 'frayed cables' or 'drives going bad'.




Disk Not Ejected Properly -- AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN AND AGAIN...

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