Erasing "SSD 2TB" and creating "SSD 2TB"

I tried to erase and reformat an external SSD disk and received the following error message:


Unmounting disk

The volume “SSD 2TB” on disk5s1 couldn’t be unmounted because it is in use by process 18228 (mdworker_shared)

Couldn’t unmount disk. : (-69888)


I need to reformat this disk but don't understand what is wrong.

Mac mini, macOS 14.2

Posted on Jan 25, 2024 3:39 AM

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4 replies

Jan 26, 2024 2:10 PM in response to neilcamp

No bother, it happens to us all.


BTW, the error message indicated that Spotlight was indexing the drive (mdworker) and would not release it which unfortunately is more common than it should be. It can also occur with other apps including the Finder...even when the Finder no longer viewing an item on that drive.


Also, erasing the whole physical drive as you probably did is what I prefer to do for external drives so that the partition table is also recreated. This can be especially important for retail external drives which can sometimes have some hidden partitions on them from the factory.


Good job discovering the solution!

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Erasing "SSD 2TB" and creating "SSD 2TB"

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