External Hard Drive Randomly Ejects From MacBook Pro - "The Disk Was Not Ejected Properly"

Again, the software was the problem with me. It was not the hardware. As previously stated, I have other drives

that were not experiencing any problems. There is nothing wrong with my USB port and I am not using a hub. As soon as I stopped using the WD proprietary software, the problems ended.

Another reason it might be doing this that at some point in the past you pulled the plug before ejectig the drive while TimeMachine was trying to backup or even after it finished.

I've had to reformat the drive and start from scratch and the drive in question is still working without the errors, I just eject it before turning it off or pulling the plug.

Same Problem here, I just through filing a warranty claim with Western Digital but had no luck with the refurbished one they sent me. It is supposed to be a portable drive but if I bump it in any way or even move it slightly while plugged in, I immediately get an unsafe eject message. I also have an older 250gb My Passport that became corrept last week. I am about ready to dump WD altogether.

Experience, not arrogance - when I have been wrong I admit it and move on. Read back in this thread and others I post in: i have a very high success rate.

Yes, I have lost my ability to kid-glove users that whine about problems without posting a shred of useful information I can work with. I think that was 5 or maybe 10 years ago...

I apologize if your feathers are ruffled, but if you want answers, give me data.

By the way, your profile suggests you hang out in very cold places. Have you checked to make sure the drives your using are rated for the temperature(s) your working them at? Also be very careful not to suddenly shock the drives with temperature changes of over 20C. Its OK to store them, but don't power them up until they have had time to warm or cool to ambient room temperature.

I have a photog client in the tropics that likes to cook his drives then blame software. I have to wonder if your like him, but you ice-cube yours instead?

And that closing was censored by Apple. I'll try and fool their software:

"S**ks to be you!"

Having exactly the same problem doing my head in. Happens with both WD Smartware software and Time Machine. Have tried changing the 'put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible' in energy saver prefs and it seems to have fixed the prob. Also just resorted to transferring files manually....

I've got two Western Digital Essential SE 1T USB drives. I had gotten them on sale at Cosco a while back and have just now started trying to use them on Macbook Pro 17" mid-2011 i7. Both drives are exhibiting the same behavior: random ejections while they're being copied to. I'll start a copy (via Finder) of a 151GB folder from hard drive to WD drive and it starts copying fine. Anywhere between 3GB to 11GB into the copy the file transfers will freeze, then the drive will eject and I'll get the Finder warning window about how the drive was not ejected properly and another Finder error about not being about to write to the drive (because it was ejected). This is repeatable and on either one of the drives.

I've tried just about everything: turning off Energy Saver "put hard drive(s) to sleep when possible)", using Western Digital software to set the drive sleep time to never, uninstalling WD SmartWare, updating the firmware in the drive, etc.

No matter, the drive(s) just keep randomly ejecting.

I sure wish I could use these 1T drives, but the way it is right now, they're unusable since I can't reliably copy to them.

I feel your pain, it's such a stupid fault. However, doing all of these things seems to have sorted the problem for me.

Upgrade to Lion OS

Completely remove / uninstall all WD Smartware software

Format in disk utility

I am now using my 1TB WD passport USB3.0 with Time Machine (which kind of ***** but whatever) and it hasn't ejected randomly at all. Not even once. It's permanently connected and is working perfectly. I'm convinced its the crappy WD software doing this.

Good luck, cheers.

Well....wish I was there, BUT, I already having the latest Lion (10.7.2), already completely removed all WD software, (in fact initially didn't have any WD software at all), and I have formatted completely several times in Apple disk utility (Mac journaled filesystem).

I am starting to think that this is a power issue. That maybe the power via the Mac and WD cable is at the edge of sufficiency and why the drives keeps ejecting.

Solved: Took the two Western Digital Essential SE 1T USB drives back to Costco. Bought a 1.5T Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex ultra-portable drive at Costco with some of the money they refunded me.

Bottom line: it's working fine, no problems. Copied my entire 1.51GB folder without a hitch.

I'm chalking my whole issue up to some sort of a desgin flaw with the WD drives or an incompatibility between those Western Digital Essential SE 1T USB drives and my macbook pro.

And just for the record:

These were Western Digital (WD) My Passport Essential SE 1T USB drives that I couldn't get to work with my Macbook Pro 17" mid-2011.

Thought I'd add this for the search engines.

I too had "The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off." every minute as it randomly recognised then ejected my my WD passport - admittedly I did drop the WD passport which disconnected earlier that day. Im running OS X 10.7.2

After some serious anxiety I managed to work out it wasnt my external hard drive that was the problem - it worked fine on my desktop.

After surfing for the fix, I fiddled and fiddled and in the last 30 mins, no eject problems (so fingers crossed it's the real fix).

Utilities - Disk Uitilities - Select Macintosh HD - First Aid - Repair Disk Permissions

(this is a snap of the log:

Group differs on “Library/Java”; should be 0; group is 80.

2011-12-31 10:43:35 +1100: Permissions differ on “Library/Java”; should be drwxr-xr-x ; they are drwxrwxr-x .

2011-12-31 10:43:35 +1100: Repaired “Library/Java”

2011-12-31 10:43:42 +1100: User differs on “usr/share/collabd/coreclient/locales/zh_CN.lproj”; should be 94; user is 0.

2011-12-31 10:43:42 +1100: Group differs on “usr/share/collabd/coreclient/locales/zh_CN.lproj”; should be 94; group is 0.

2011-12-31 10:43:42 +1100: Repaired “usr/share/collabd/coreclient/locales/zh_CN.lproj”

2011-12-31 10:43:42 +1100: User differs on “usr/share/collabd/coreclient/public/locales/zh_CN.lproj”; should be 94; user is 0.

etc etc

After Permission Repair completed, I just clicked on the Passport drive and in First aid - Verify and repair.

So far it is still looking good! Phew! Now Im dashing out to buy another hard drive to back up just in case!!

I have the same problems with my new iMac and 2 new 2Tb drives - if I disconnect the drives it's OK, as soon as I add 1 or both, I get the same message every few minutes - it's a Mac issue as I put the same drives onto my windows PC same cables etc and no problems??

Hi,

I was facing the same issue with my WD 1 TB My Passport Essentials SE drive and below is my experience and hope it helps:

- I bought the drive a few months ago and immediately installed the WD SmartWare software that came with the drive. I set up a security password on it and was facing the random ejects from day one. I tried everything and was finally annoyed to the point that i deleted the Smartware software from my MacBook Pro 17" and was using the drive without it. The problem went away.

Today I decided to change the password I had set through the WD software and downloaded the SmartWare software to do so. And I have started facing the same problem again now.

Therefore my conclusion is that it has something to do with the WD SmartWare software, and I even tried changing the sleep options inside SmartWare but it doesnt help.

I hope this was helpful because it is annoying the crap out of me, that the drive keeps ejecting. I dont think WD is a bad brand, but this is a serious issue..

Good Luck..

You made a good start, but now you have to be methodical.

i posted this a few months ago, its the general-purpose diagnostic procedure for electronic devices. If you follow it, you will either figure out the true root cause on your own, or you will be able to post enough information for people like me to figure it out for you.

If you want to find answers or get help (especially from me) then you have to do this, in order:

- Google your drive make and model, see if anybody else is having the same problem. If you are the only person on the planet with drive "XYZ" with a problem then chances are you have a hardware problem in the drive, computer, hub, or cables (not necessarily in that order).

- if there is a support site for the drive post a question there about your symptoms (and read/search previous posts). Again, if your the only person in the world with a problem...

- Search this thread for you drive make (not model) to see if there have been other problems with their products (actually this is a good idea for a google search too). I tell clients to do this BEFORE they buy something - "buyer beware"!

- Do some experiments. Try the drive on other computers, different cables, no hub, different USB jacks. Try READiNG only small files, then large. Try WRITING small files, then large. Try it after it's been OFF overnight. Try it after the computer and hub have been OFF overnight. Try it with nothing else running on the computer. Change the drive format, does it matter if it's exFAT, NTFS, or OSX Journaled?

- Post your symptoms and test results here. If you want help and not just platitudes and "me too"s you must include the drive make, model and any other potentially useful info like date of manufacturer, the disk drive make/model iniside. Go into System Profiler and grab all the USB info.

- Check to see if the drive has the same USB chip ID as the two we have already found in problem drives. Googling the chip ID sometimes can tell you quite quickly if there is a problem and a fix.

I know this is potentially a lot of work, I go through this process nearly weekly for clients. The problems change, but the process remains the same.

The only "quick fix" is to find a solution or workaround with Google. I will spend a few hours reading every post even remotely related to a problem, looking for clues to the problem or a fix. In most cases a workaround is acceptable - it depends on how annoying the workaround is.

I have the same issue -

WD passport external hard drive

Macbook Pro 13" OSX 10.6.8

I've worked with the external drive fine until today. Yesterday I was doing heavy duty video saving and optimizing in imovie, and it worked fine, today, with no changes in anything, I keep getting the "The Drive was not ejected properly" message, as it ejects itself seconds after I try to connect it via USB.

I have a lot of important files on there ... I really hope I can get it to work again! Tips most gratefully appreciated.