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

I see that you posted this quite a long time ago, but it just saved me - from 2013 to today in 2017!

My external drive (a G-drive) got disconnected accidentally, and I could not get my Macbook Air to see it. Tried all sorts of things recommended in tech sites, and yet mostly came across threads where folks had given up - just sucking it up sadly and counting their data as gone.

The key insight you gave me: I was assuming something was corrupted on the drive, and was sort of trying to figure out how to break in to get the data back, but the issue was that the USB port on the laptop needed to be "reset" (so to speak). I had tested my USB ports earlier with a simple thumb drive, and they were found just fine, so I assumed it was data corruption of some sort on the external drive. With thumb drives, I just always yank them out (I'm probably not the only one). It's never mattered over years and years of not following directions. But I used the old reliable thumb drive to hit "eject", and then the port worked again with my G-Drive. I was just trying one last thing before surrendering and buying a new drive and hoping I could live without the backups I'd done previously.

While this thread is old, I wanted to add a comment so that people can see that this advice is still good.

Addresses what, the requirement for correct ejection is not a bug, what problems are you seeing.

The solution to the warning message is to open Finder then in the Finder sidebar under Devices find the disk you want to remove and click on the eject arrow immediately to its right hand side. Alternatively if you see the icon on your desktop you can drag the icon to the trash or you can Control+Click (right click) on the device icon and from the context menu select eject. You should do this each time you remove the device. If it is a read/write device such as a hard disk drive or thumb drive and you fail to dismount the volume before removing the devcie you risk irreperably damaging the volume structure and/or files on the device. Note it is a good idea to take a slow three count before physically disconnecting the device.

Joe Bailey Repped. LOL.

No I think he must mean that it is unmounting automatically without any intervention.😁

Is this happening after awaking from sleep

http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/24/apple-preps-new-os-x-10-8-5-release-with-fixes-for -macbook-airs-hdmi/

I'm curious - does this happen with just one ext hard drive? or several, including different brands?

I ask because I had one particular drive do that. I got rid of it. I'm guessing - just guessing - that the firmware included power saving "features" that the controller circuit in the ext case, or OS X itself, coudln't override.

Hope 10.8.5 fixes it - I'll never know :-)

Or, you can look on the drive manufacturer's site for firmware updates. Mine had one available - but Windows-only.

Greg,

I'm no expert in this since all my external drives are network storage drives. Based on the various discussions I've read, it seems to be happening to drives made by various manufacturers. Sorry I can't provide more information.

Eric

Thanks w_clark for that info. Further info from me:

Mac mini late 2012 10.8.5

I have two USB 2.0 drives connected that have never experienced your issue. The external case driver chips are from Alcor Micro Corp (Western Digital drive) and Prolific Technology Inc (Toshiba drive).

This computer runs 24/7.

Hi there I have had the same issue which has been fixed today.

1 > Isolate the issue by ejecting and diconnecting all other USB plug ins

2 > Wait and see if the pop up has stopped

The reason why you get this mesage is because some kind of a power/data connection gets broken/lost between devices.

This type of issue can be due to something not being plugged in securely or tightly or if there is an issue with cables... Mainly noticed tis on external hard drives.... like Passoprt, Time machine ect.

3 > Check cables and connections

4 > Plug in external devices one at a time wait and see if pop up appears again ... then continue

For me it was a wobbly connection with passport.

🙂

cheers,

Graham

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

I continue to get the "disc was not ejected properly message" when I have not ejected it at all. I'm using LaCie Rugged's, G-Force 4,6, and 8TBs and some older WDs (USB, eSata and Firewire 800 and 400) a Mac Pro Tower and a MacBook Pro laptop, both running 10.6.8 and both started giving the same messages a few months ago. In both cases it's sudden and random - I'm not moving the HDs or the cables, etc, sometimes I can work for hours with no issues or sometimes I can waste an hour just getting the drives to read without the error. It happens with multiple ports (USB, eSata and Firewire), using different connectors - across all the hard drives.

It warns the disc can be damaged by doing this and I believe that is now happening. Often now they need to be restarted several times as it says they are unreadbale after the Mac ejects them. I'm not using Time Machine on the laptop but I am on the tower.

Any resolution? I'm anxious to buy a new Mac (waiting on the new desktop) but it's scary since it will depend so much on external drives. This problem destroys the render files in FCP. It's a major disruption.

I plug the connectors in as tightly as they can be. That can't be the issue.

daniel1313 wrote:

It warns the disc can be damaged by doing this and I believe that is now happening. Often now they need to be restarted several times as it says they are unreadbale after the Mac ejects them. I'm not using Time Machine on the laptop but I am on the tower.

The disk itself will not be damaged. The risk is the disk will be dismounted during a read or write operation and will leave the volume structure in an ambiguous situation. Even that is not a huge risk. You mentioned that you have a number of external drives connected to your computer. Am I correct in assuming you have one or more hubs that you are using to connect to the various drives? If so, your problem could easily be one or more faulty hubs. Faulty hubs are all too common in today's market where hubs are a commodity marketed primarily on low price and therefore very cheaply made.

Thanks Joe,

No hubs, only the provided ports. On my desktop a couple daisy chains exist on the larger drives. This morning I lost a couple hours on the issue. It's now the fifth time I've needed to use disc utility to fix an unreadable external drive. True the HDs are fine - but the files are getting damaged. I went to make a back-up right after restoring the HD and I couldn't - the backup was stoped by an error messages saying particualr files could not be copied. I already have a backup of the files, but wanted one to a internal drive (it's now not posible).

The damaged files were DSC_ .mov files. In some cases they couldn't even be moved to a "damged folder" from within the folder they reside - the OS wouldn't allow it. These are Nikon files - a friend who shoots with Canon has not had this issue at - maybe there is a connection???

Can't work like this any more - going to research PCs and video editing today. Got to get my work done and it isn't going to happen on a mac.

It's been happening on my MacBookPro, with 10.6.75, as above.

Two different hubs.

Now it happens every 3 mins approx. I just turned my once-trusty Vantec backup drive again and it happened in the time I took to write this.

All I use the drive for is file copies and, yes, Time Machine, which could not complete the backup.

There it goes again, the second time while writing the one post. Say twice in 10 mins. Ugh.

And it happens in the field; when I have just a Patriot 60 gig USB hanging off a different travelling hub.

Thanks to all for their posts.so useful to know it is not slack connections.

There is something very wrong here. And it's been wrong for many months.