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

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.

The comment below was originally posted to the following thread that began back in 2008.

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15544067#15544067.  Why is this an ongoing issue?

Wow, can't believe what I'm reading here. But I should since the reason I found this thread is due to experiencing the exact same issues. I'm currently using OSX 10.6.8. Over the past month I've had numerous drive failures due to drives bing ejected without warning. One of the drives, a Drobo with 200,000 photos on it, ejected threes different times and thousands of images destroyed. I originally attributed it to using the Drobo via ISCSI but have since had three smaller external drives ejected AND RUINED. The smaller drives included one GTech firewire and two Western Digital USB 2.0. Ejected drives have happened with a MacBook Pro and MacPro computers. The latest dive I tried to repair via OSX Disk Utility. No luck. Then tried Data Rescue and each time Data REscue begins a scan, the drive ejects. I've not been able to even try and repair this drive due to ejecting. Not sure it's related to the original Eject problem or it's because the drive is now corrupted. This has got to be one of the most serious issues I've ever had with an Apple computer. Destroying data and drives is about as bad a problem as one can have.

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.

This appears to be a duplicate of an older thread.

You will find that thread, and my summary of the problems identified so far with solutions here:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/15544501#15544501

Richard, your response is interlaced with so much arrogance I could hardly finish reading it. Seems appropriate to end your reply with " ***** to be you"

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!"

To all on this thread (except R. Cooke, who has seen it all): please take a look on

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2151621

at my posts dated 7 May (under ID tingo@tanca), 12 May and 14 May, as well as my last confirming post on 29 June (which I can re-confirm today) to see how I was lucky enough to completely resolve this issue, even if it was a pain in the arse. While it might not be the solution for everyone, it certainly is worth a try.

I had the same problem with a 1TB WD My Passport Essential SE I just bought.

I agree with Grendel that it's the software. I uninstalled it and it hasn't powered down yet.

Give that a try.

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.

Sorry to hear that, super weird because I was having the exact same problem, by some miracle seems to be working totally fine now. Will def be avoiding WD stuff in future though.