Reboot by unplugging a hard drive

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Reboot by unplugging a hard drive

Why does this happen? Not every time, but pretty close to almost always. I have three drives connected to my MBP. I shut down the computer. After I'm sure it's shut down, I unplug the drives. Usually the first drive I unplug or maybe the second, the system will bong and boot up.

Why does it do this? It's crazy, not to mention not a great thing to happen to a connected drive, power up and pull the cord.

Interested to hear if other people have seen this.

Thanks very much.

Posted on Mar 7, 2024 11:48 AM

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Answer 1

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HWTech

Level 9

68,714 points

Mar 7, 2024 9:14 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

I have seen this happen when disconnecting the power adapter. The Mac is sensing a change on the USB-C port which makes it think a power adapter is being connected. Or maybe you are accidentally hitting a key or even the Trackpad since touch either will automatically power on the newer Macs (very annoying).

You may want to eject your drives first and physically disconnect them before powering down the Mac. Just make sure to wait at least 30 seconds to even a minute for the volumes on the external drive to be unmounted or you may get an error message about "Disk not ejected properly"....and it could cause data and/or file system corruption. Even if the drive has an activity LED, I will still wait about 30 seconds after it stops flashing before I physically disconnect the drive. I miss the older macOS where it would tell you when it was safe to physically disconnect an external drive.

You can provide Apple with product feedback here:

Product Feedback - Apple

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Answer 2

Tom Wolsky Author

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152,780 points

Mar 8, 2024 3:00 AM in response to HWTech

Thank you very I for the information and the link.

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Reboot by unplugging a hard drive

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