I can’t eject USB drives or drives without using Disk utility command+E (Just upgraded to Lion, could not with 10.6.8 either - continued issues - expected a fix with upgrade to lion)
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.2)
Command +E is a shortcut keyboard command. The other ways to eject an external drive are: drag the drive to the trash- Click on drive and go to file at top to desktop and then click on the eject (name) drive. Or use disk utilities. Click on the drive in utilities and again go to file and eject. Do you have an Apple keyboard. All apple keyboards have an eject key at the top right corner. Do none of these work? What type of usb drive are you usingand is it closed when you try to eject it?
Thanks for the reply. I have been using disk utility Command + E function. The eject on the keyboard does not work (I have an apple keyboard). Dragging to the trash does not work either!. There is no 'eject' option in the 'file' drop-down. I have 5 types of usb drives, and 2 portable harddrives - none eject! Not 100% sure what you mean when you say 'closed', but I make sure that no programs are actively running before trying eject!
Image capture does not appear to be working correctly - perhaps they are associated in some manner!
Image capture is for scanners and camera's. When you use file/ eject on the desktop, you have to click once on the drive you want to eject first. Do you have your external drives named anything. Other than the same as your internal drive? I'm still looking into this as it is a strange one. Do you get any messages like (disk in use ) or (disk is busy), when trying to eject it?
No messages - several are names (the example below was not a names usb. No options to eject! See image! Hope that helps!
Here's someting to try. At the top left desktop click on the finder and then preferences. See if you have in general preferences external hard disks checked off. I know from the picture that you do in the sidebar preferences.
I have it checked off...
The fact that ithe eject option is not even showing up in the finder leads me to believe that there is a missing or corupt file in your system. Even if you have no external drive mounted eject should show up even if it's greyed out.You might have to do a restore of lion off the restore partition.
If you go to the restore option. You might want to try to repair permissions and the internal drive in the disk utilities option first. Just in case it's a permissions problem.
There are three common ways to eject an external disk/flash drive:
- select its icon once and press Comm-E; this is a general sys shortcut.
- take drive icon to the trash
- click on arrow-up symbol, at attached
Eject key on Apple keyboards (some do not have it any more) applies to only optical discs in the optical drive and to the specific optical drive for the Air.
Are all these work OK with you or not?
Thanks for the reply Cattus Thraex Bucharest, Romania , however the 3rd post above covers that they have already been tried!
If you go to the restore option. You might want to try to repair permissions and the internal drive in the disk utilities option first. Just in case it's a permissions problem.
I just ran the repair permission - no change in ability to eject!
Question? do you or have you used onyx for mac? If so. log on to it and go to onyx preferences and check the show preferences box and show trash box and log out. If you don't have onyx then it's a finder problem. Go to your home folder -library preferences and delete com. apple finder plist and if you can't eject from the sidebar in finder also the com.apple sidebar plist. Restart and check the settings in finder preferences. I think this might fix the problem. The finder will create an new plist.
On an added note. I did some checking and found that some people that used onyx were having the problem you have. If you wanted to check if it's a finder problem, you could go to system preferences accounts and set up a new user with password and log onto that user. Then see if the problem exists for the new user. You can always delete the user folder and user when done.
Hello my ginger. I created a new user - and was able to eject the flash/thumb drives. Now what should I do?
PS - I do not use onyx... but I do see it in my utilities folder!
Good. This means that, in your existing account, a setting is bad or .plist file is corrupt. As identifying the rascal may take time, my suggestion is to move data to the new account, must be with administrative privileges. As the contents of each account is unavailable to the other, there are two methods:
- if you have a backup on an external disk, as you should (if not, consider this seriously, do not count on good behavior of hard disks), make a last backup on the existing account, and restore in the other account; when ready, delete the old (buggy) account
- if not, save your settings unto a flash drive; this is a limited backup just to avoid putting back settings for Mail etc. I am satisfied with iBackup (grapefruit.ch), but there are other backup utilitites, Time Machine, for example; TM does not allow limited backup, it works if you have a large external disk. If backup disk is not available, move files to shared folder, which is visible from both accounts, and from there to the new account.
May seem difficult, in fact it is not. You must just move data from one account to another. Now, take care to new apps you install or new functions you activate. When you notice something strange, that may be the cause of this behavior.
If unclear, comment and will try to help.
can’t eject USB drives and others without using Disk utility command E (could not with 10.6.8 either - continued issues - expected a fix with upgrade)
