Disk not ejected properly

I have a seagate 1.5, and everything worked fine up until yesterday. I am getting the same error 10 times per day and the disc icon disappears from the desktop by it self. I have to reconnect all the time.

Very frustrating!

Now messages " Disc not ejected properly" pop up and all the discs are connected.

Is there a way to solve this?

In May mine will have been doing this for three years. I've tried everything including replacing the external drive. This happens on both computers I own. Plus I had the hard drive replaced on my iMac last year too. Still does it. So it has to be something in the OS.

Apple keeps on blowing it off.

There are numerous posts out concerning this. Check out some of the posts from Pondini. He seems to be pretty up on what is going on.

From my end I just have learned to live with it. Regretfully.I think you will have to do so also.

Norm

Getting the same annoyning message about disk not ejected properly after waking up the Mac Mini from sleep mode. Seriously ****** off as this is a pain in the butt. Hard to imagine that Apple can't or won't address this issue. Any clues to solve?

I solved the problem, finally. I had my external burner connected in a chain with external hard drives. There was a connection issue with the burner, I disconnected it from all the drives and no more messages. I can suggest to check all the fire wires or replaced them with a new one. I think thats what causes the not ejected properly problem.

I'm getting this constantly with an eSATA drive and card. But not with all the drives. It started when I connected a new Guardian Maximus, 4TB, USB 3.0 though I used my eSATA card. Every sleep/wake cycle the drive would unmount and this message would appear. I bought a USB 3.0 and the same thing happened. I returned the drive.

Now I have a USB 3.0 to eSATA connector. I have a drive connected by Firewire 800 with no problems. But today I put that drive into the USB 3.0 card using the eSATA converter/connector. The dismount error message appears though every sleep/wake cycle.

Here's one positive thing at least: The Guardian Maximus with a straight eSATA connection would disappear off the desktop and I'd have to fire it off and back on for it to mount again. The drive using that connector remounts quickly. But that ****** error message...

Why is there no checkmark near something that says "don't tell me about this again". ?

My problem is with a Mac Mini which is running OS X Server 10.7.4. I used to have this problem occasionally but for some reason it has now started to happen more regularly with no apparent cause. The drive is not even being disconnected in any way that I can see - the message appears to be totally spurious.

This is particularly frustrating with a server because it causes the shared volumes which reside on an external drive to dismount on the clients which is ruinous for the files which were opened from them.

The thing that most winds me up is that USB (or Firewire) is the only way of having a decent sized mirrored RAID volume available on a Mac Mini which is running as a server. If Apple would make a small compact tower available which could accomodate a couple of drives running in RAID 1 then that would be the obvious solution. But they don't so we're stuck with Mac Minis with external drives, and if that is not reliable because of problems like this then where do we go next?

Update... 4 months later.

After switching my internal HDD which failed (S.M.A.R.T. failure), having another of my external HDD fail (awful grinding noise), upgrading my RAM (switching first, since I had big problems with the iMac) and having to deal with a Microsoft-like acting iMac for months... after re-installing Mountain Lion from scratch a week or so ago...

I finally started using Time Machine again...

and that message appeared again!

I could notice that it's my Seagate external HDD disconnecting on it's own, while I'm working on the iMac, so it has nothing to do with it going to sleep or waking up from sleep (I also put the energy settings to "never go to sleep" and "never let the disk go to sleep"... which I'll be able to change back now...)
It also has nothing to do with the backup cycle... last time the drive disconnected about 10min before the next backup... and just now it disconnected about 30min after and 30min before... So it's not like it disconnects after x min of not working, or just before the backup...

And it re-connects after maybe 30-60sec. on it's own. I don't have to physically do anything. If I don't look fast enough, I couldn't even tell which HDD disconnected.

I had downloaded the latest Seagate HDD driver update, too... to no avail.

And according to Disk utility, the drive is ok. I do notice it's a bit more noisy than it used to be (I can hear it "thinking" a bit more louder and a bit more often, even when it should be sleeping... but it's far from loud grinding or clinking).

So that's all I can contribute. No solution, sorry.

I seem to be having the same problem. I have a 2008 unibody macbook pro 15". I have a HP simple save 1tb usb 3.0 portable external (its a rebadged wd drive). Its been split into two partitions, 500gb ntfs and 500gb hfs journaling. The ntfs drive is my storage place while the hfs is the time machine backup. Basically, a few days back, time machine gave me an error saying not enough space on the external drive for a backup and it would try again later after clearing up some space. Ever since that error message, the drive has been ejecting itself and giving the error message (both partitions would eject). I've tried everything I could think of including updating to 10.7.5 (including the supplemental update), trying a different usb 3.0 cable, using a micro usb cable to connect the drive and also switching the usb port. *********And then I found something by fluke chance, if I plug in the drive and go to disk utility and unmount the hfs partition, the ntfs partition remains mounted on the computer and no error message, no automatic ejection either. *********** If I then try to mount the hfs partition as well, within a few minutes, the drive ejects itself. So, I just leave it unmounted, which means time machine isnt working but at least I have access to my hard drive. So far, its been 3 days without an ejection, I just wish I could backup my computer as well.

I'm havin the same issue using OS 10.8.3. I have two WD drives attached to FW800 chain. The message does not indicate which of the drive (if at all) was "rejected". I simply confirm "ok" and continue to use it.

Two or three times i got a more serious message saying that the drive is defective and that i should start the drive manager. As soon as starting the WD manager, everthing is ok = green again. Strange and annoying. And... if realizing how old this entry is! It started July 2011!

Having this issue with 10.7.3 - the concerning part is that after several months of this happening, one of my Lacie drives has failed (permanently) and after getting a new WD drive, am still getting them ejected - when I am not in front of the computer. I have turned off all forms of energy saving and screen savers, I am not sure what is causing it.

I am not sure if the repeated ejecting has caused my drive to fail, or it's just that Lacie drives are garbage (I have gone through 4 Lacie drives going bad before I stopped buying them).

A little disappointed that there is no Apple solution or comment on the situation.

Going on 4 years now and it is still happening to me. Almost a daily occurence.

I am still working under Snow Leopard v10.6.8. To sum up what I have done to try to correct it.

None of these worked!

• Took it to Apple after sevice numerous times - they finally shook thier heads and gave up.
• Reloaded the OS numerous times.
• Replaced all the back-ups.
• Replaced the Back-up disk. Note that the back-up disk I replaced works fine for another person using windows.
• Replaced the hard drive.
• Contacted Apple, they never responded!

You think u are a little disappointed, u should be where I am! Throughly P.O'd. and

I have been a stock holder for a long time, and very loyal fan of thier products.!

Regretfully you will have to learn to live with it.

😠

Norm

I think there probably is something to the Time Machine issue mentioned earlier here, as this problem has just started for me, and coincides with me just starting to use TM (with a Seagate drive) on this particular MacPro.

Apple's way of moving more Time Capsules perhaps?

I have the same problem with Macbook pro retina 15 , hard dusk is WD 1T every like 6 min is coming same problem 😟

((((( The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off.))))

My current view on this problem is that it is most likely a problem with the physical connection rather than a software issue. I have very dramatically reduced the incidence of it in two ways over the past few months:

1. Firstly, I shut down the system and then unplugged and replugged the USB cable at both ends ten or fifteen times in an attempt to clean the contacts. This definitely reduced the incidence of the problem but didn't totally stop it occurring.

2. Secondly at a later date I replaced the USB cable with a higher quality one with good gold-plated contacts. Again when first connecting it I plugged and unplugged the cable at both ends a good few times. This has further reduced the incidence of the problem to a degree that is now acceptable - maybe once a month at most.

I am not totally convinced that I have got to the bottom of the problem but in my case this approach does seem to have improved the situation a lot.

I would make two observations. Firstly, relying on a USB (or other pluggable) connection for expansion of a server is not, in my view, acceptable if you want a high reliability solution. Unfortunately with Apple's current range of Macs there is no practical alternative. It should be possible to directly connect storage to a bus using connectors specifically designed for long term reliability. It is possible that Thunderbolt offers this but I have not seen this aspect discussed anywhere.

Secondly the operating system should be more robust when situations like this occur. Maybe retrying access a few times before giving up the ghost on the first failure might help, and issuing a precautionary warning that does not result in the drive being ejected unless contact with it is permanently lost.