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disk utility

Greetings!

I am in process of upgrading my operating systems. I backed up my important files to an external drive yesterday. I used a WD passport for Mac drive. It went successfully and I ejected that drive from my computer then before continuing on with my upgrades. APPLE sent me a copy of Snow Leopard and I was able to download that successfully this afternoon. After doing a software update I went into DISK UTILTY to do a repair disk permissions on my Mac HD. I was advised to do this after software updates.


Anyway, within that window of DISK UTILTY on the left where it lists the various "DRIVES" on your computer, beside the Macintosh HD and OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5, I now noticed that it also list a 320.07 GB WDC WD 320 Drive....... and this is probably a dumb question. Is this normal to show up even though it is not attached to my computer via USB at the moment? Is this just because I did hook it up so it is "ready" for the next time, so to speak?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jun 21, 2012 6:54 PM

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11 replies

Jun 21, 2012 9:30 PM in response to baltwo

Thank you Baltwo......


Actually within the DU window, on the left it is listed in the following order:


320.07 GB WDC WD320.............


Macintosh HD


OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5


Does this make a difference? Why would this have happened? I only did a drag and slide of important folders and libraries and then right clicked the WD PASSPORT Drive and selected EJECT. I waited for all lights to go idle and then disconnected the USB cable to stow the device away until later.

Jun 23, 2012 2:55 PM in response to baltwo

Thanks for the input. Yesterday I had to buy something at our local APPLE STORE and mentioned this to the assisting person. They said that this is a feature of Mac's plug and play and this would always be there since I had plugged in the WD PASSPORT DRIVE to be recognized the next time. And I should not worry about it. ??????????

Jun 23, 2012 5:04 PM in response to lutra

lutra wrote:

Actually within the DU window, on the left it is listed in the following order:


320.07 GB WDC WD320.............


Macintosh HD


OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5

Is "Macintosh HD" indented under "320.07 GB WDC WD320" like you show above? If so, & there is no other drives listed above or in addition to what you show, then that first 'WDC' listing is not your external drive. It is the internal drive that contains the Macintosh HD volume that your computer is running from (known as the startup or boot disk).


It is a bit confusing but a volume is a subdivision of a hard drive with its own name. A hard drive can have more than one volume, so to indicate this Disk Utility first lists the drive itself (here the "320.07 GB WDC WD320" part), & then indented below it all of its volumes (here just "Macintosh HD.")


If I'm guessing right about this, when you plug in your external drive, you will see at least two more entries in the list, one for the drive itself & indented below that one for its named volume.

Jun 25, 2012 3:29 PM in response to R C-R

Yes, R-C-R-, it is indented as I showed. And yes, I do see two more entries when I plug in my WD PASSPORT external hard drive. I never saw the top drive, though, until using the Passport drive to copy some folders onto.


As BALTWO said, perhaps I did not do the eject process correctly? I only did a right click on the WD PASSPORT and selected eject. Waited for the light to go to off and unplugged the USB cable. BUT BALTWO says there is more to the process. PLEASE ADVISE if I should now plug it back in and try to properly dismount, etc, as BALTWO mentions. Please give me the instructions exactly.

Jun 25, 2012 5:56 PM in response to lutra

I just did another check. Launch DU, select the ext HD, not any of its volumes, click the Eject button, and wait until all volumes display their native icons, matching the ext HD, then power it down. What might have happened is that the WD HD didn't fully unmount the volumes and that's what caused your issue.

Jun 25, 2012 8:26 PM in response to lutra

lutra wrote:

Yes, R-C-R-, it is indented as I showed. And yes, I do see two more entries when I plug in my WD PASSPORT external hard drive. I never saw the top drive, though, until using the Passport drive to copy some folders onto.

Whether you saw it or not, everything indented below "320.07 GB WDC WD320" is a part of that drive & has nothing to do with the Passport drive, which when connected & powered up will also show both the drive itself & any volumes it contains.


As BALTWO said, perhaps I did not do the eject process correctly? I only did a right click on the WD PASSPORT and selected eject. Waited for the light to go to off and unplugged the USB cable.

Its sounds like you did the eject process correctly. If you had not, when you unplugged the USB cable the OS should have warned you about improperly disconnecting the drive. If that didn't happen, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

BUT BALTWO says there is more to the process.

Not exactly. He is talking about the remote possibility that some volume on the Passport did not "fully unmount." I'm not exactly sure what he means by that but I think it is about powering it down or disconnecting a drive before every open file on it can be closed, which is part of the unmount process. As long as you wait a few seconds after all drive activity stops before unplugging it, you have done all that is required.

Jun 26, 2012 4:32 PM in response to R C-R

R C-R wrote:

Not exactly. He is talking about the remote possibility that some volume on the Passport did not "fully unmount." I'm not exactly sure what he means by that but I think it is about powering it down or disconnecting a drive before every open file on it can be closed, which is part of the unmount process.

That's exactly what I mean. I have a FWHD w/eight volumes. If I mount it and then launch Disk Utility, select the HD, not it's volumes, and select Eject, I note that it takes a few moments for all the volumes to unmount. If you don't wait, then you'll usually get the dreaded unmounted incorrectly message, either when doing it or when reconnecting. That's why I always use the DU method; it provides a visual display of what's occurring.

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