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Hi. When I try to eject an external drive that is connected to my MBP via USB, I sometimes get the message that appears in the subject header of this discussion thread. When I get this message, is there a way that I can determine what app / software / process is using the drive? Thx
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)
This happens when a file or document on the external disk is still open. Look in the DOCK to see which app is open, find the one that is using a file or document on the external drive. Close that app.Then eject should work.
The command line command "lsof" lists the open files and which processes are using them. Unfortunately, the output is not easy to read.
Start
Applications/Utilities/Terminal
and enter:
ls /Volums
to see all your Volumes.
Then pick the path to the Volume you want to eject and enter:
lsof /Volumes/theNameOfYourDisk
and you will see something like
dreschle% lsof /Volumes/iDisk
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
mdworker 638 dreschle 6r REG 14,23 21508 16446 /Volumes/dreschler/.DS_Store
which tells you that process "mdworker" is using the file .DS_Store on my iDisk.
"The volume can't be ejected because it's in use
