Disk not ejected properly

I had the same problem with the OWC ThunderBay 4 system - kept getting "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message (once per two minutes). I replaced the ThunderBolt cable that came from OWC with an Apple ThunderBolt cable and have not had any problems. The Apple cable is twice the diameter. My hunch is better shielding and lower gauge wire for better signal SNR.

Hope this helps.

I've been reading this chat with great interest.

I have Hitachi 650GB and WD 3TB sitting in a "Hornetteek Enterprise 4x Quad Bay", work great.

I also have two separate external HD's - Maxtor 650GB and Intenso 500GB.

They all switch off during sleep, so when I wake my mac I get the anoying "Disc not ejected properly" message.

I recently purchased the "Inateck 4 Port PCI-E to USB 3.0 Expansion Card" and installed into my Mac Pro (early 2009). It plugs straight into the PCI board, no other conections or cables apart from the external USB.

This was to upgrade from USB2.0 to USB3.0 for faster Hard Drive read/write data speed.

After reading a couple of rating related feedback comments I discovered that one downside to the "Inateck" is that during sleep transition HD's connected to the PCI card will flag the message "Disc not ejected properly" on wake. However they will re-mount within a couple of seconds. Other than this downside I can't recommend this PCI card enough.

The only inconvenience is that I have to close four "Disc not ejected properly" windows.

I'm guessing the PCI card loses power when the mac sleeps. I have posted a couple of questions to Inateck support:

1. Is there a separate power cable that can be connected to the PCI board?

2. Will allowing my mac to sleep like this damage my Hard Drives?

I'm waiting for a reply.

Here is the reply I received from Inateck:

"For you information,the "problem" you mentioned is also frequently asked by our other customers. We think it is a normal phenomenon. Unlike a PC itself, most PC peripherals won't support the Sleep/Wake up function. This means you have to unplug and plug your devices like a HDD connected with an expansion card if you wake up a PC from Sleep Mode. Considering about the data security and device maintenance, we also suggest you to exit your HDD every time before your mac goes into Sleep Mode. This advice is also mentioned in Mac official forum.

Or you can do some setting to disallow your Mac goes to sleep mode. Hope you can understand it"

Looks like my Mac won't be going to sleep...

Thanks. That's the most cogent and understandable response I've seen, even though I don't like the answer. It's not entirely clear why this didn't use to happen in much earlier OSes, at least not to me. Maybe it did happen, and the OS simply didn't produce the DNEP message. I think I can recall times when the external drive had been disconnected when I tried to access it, and I had to start it up again. Anyway, it doesn't seem like most people are losing data as a result.

I Would tend to agree with both of you. I can't remember having this problem in the past with regards to my Mac going to sleep. Mind you for the last couple of years I haven't been allowing my Mac to sleep" I can't remember why I made this decission, but it may be linked to the "not ejected properly" issue. As far as I understand three of my hard drives have individual power supplies, therefore the USB connection would only transfer data. So if your Mac goes to sleep the hard drives still have their own power, allowing them to sleep.

I've exhausted my efforts to find a solution to this problem, so for me it's "never sleep" or sleep and hope my drives don't get damaged.

I don't know what WMS44 has done, but I /did/ remove all power (internal battery connection) from my Macbook Pro Retina (mid-2012) for about half an hour in the process of replacing my SSD, and the problem with DNEP was unchanged. I know you have said repeatedly to remove power for 2 hours, but it's hard to believe that without any power the capacitance would hold that long. I suppose anything possible.

I've also tried all the other remedies suggested here, including cable changes, removing the configuration folder from the library, etc., etc. But my DNEP issue so far occurs /only/ with my USB 3.0 WD MyBook drive, not my other USB or Thunderbolt drives.

I suspect this DNEP issue is multifactorial cross various OSes and computers and HD, and that there is not a single explanation or fix that "fits all." What baffles me is that Apple, which surely must be aware of this issue from support calls to Applecare for those who have Applecare, hasn't tried to figure out what is going on by looking at Console logs, error reports, and the like.

Sorry , I should have mentioned that I did disconnect everything from my Mac Pro and powered down for 10 hrs. Didn't work for me.

I Also gave RObster50's solution a go. Still no luck.

I Reached the conclusion that it was down to the inateck PCI expansion card.

I'm sure if I swapped one of the hard drives to one of the original USB 2.0 ports it would be fine. But that still doesn't solve my USB 3.0 to HD's issue.

There are variations of issues withing this chat. Faulty or poorer quality USB cables will cause your HD to flag the "not ejected properly" warning. Last year my Maxtor would do this whilst I was working on my Mac, until I changed the cable. That solved that particular issue.

Robster50's solution will also work for some, makes sense.

LaraCroft_NYC's solution doesn't really make logical sense, but there has been evidence of peripherals causing issues. When disconnected and allowing your Mac to completely power down followed by reconnecting peripherals results in some magical results.

I now know neither of the above is linked to my issue.

Another reason I have decided not to use sleep is because SSD's don't really need to be put to sleep (so I read somewhere). I have three internal SSD's including my OS drive.

The only reason I originally wanted to use sleep was due to the fan noise coming from my Mac and Hornetteck enclosure. It's not loud but it would have been nice to shut out the sound all together.

I have now decided that I can live with the distant hum compared to banging my head against a brick wall trying to find a solution that would result in making other sacrifices.

"I have now decided that I can live with the distant hum compared to banging my head against a brick wall trying to find a solution that would result in making other sacrifices."

Banging your head against a brick wall makes noise, too. My wife tells me that my swearing at my computer doesn't seem to help the situation, either, but it makes me feel better.

I think we've come to a dead end here, but I like the idea of not putting a computer with a SSD to sleep--I think I'm going to try that method and see what happens. I don't have it set to sleep automatically--only the screen--and it seems that I sometimes get the DNEP message after the computer has been idle for a while, and not having gone to sleep, but I'm not sure.

Ha! Ha! KenV54, It hurst more as well.

OK - one update for you that has solved my issue.

I thought I could afford to waste £2.99 on Jettison (app store) and guess what. Ejects my external HD's on sleep and re-mounts them on wake without any issues. Just a little confused that a new USB HD has appeared on my desktop called EFI. It's formatted as MS-DOS(FAT32), so I'm guessing this has something to do with WMware fusion (parallels). Just really confusing that it appears as a USB volume.

I just though I'd post some info about Jettison, which seems a little strange. Purchasing Jettison from App store give you version 1.2, however there is an update to 1.4, which give a few more settings. The following link describes how to get the update if you have purchased on the App store.

http://justaguythinkingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/a-solution-to-problem-with-ma c-osx-109.html

Reverted back to Jettison 1.2.4 because the update as described from the link on previous post didn't work for me.

I'll probably contact the vendor to see why.

UPDATE - Rather than adding more and more posts on here - Jettison 1.2.4 has stopped working. STRANGE!!!

There seems to be a difference between allowing my mac to sleep through Energy Saver and forcing to sleep using the Jettison interface.

Whether I use Jettison 1.2.4 or Jettison 1.4.2, allowing to sleep naturally is fine. But using Jettison to sleep doesn't work with either version.

I also get a black screen on wake for 5 seconds, which was worrying, but then all drives have mounted with no evidence of "not ejected properly" warning.

This is going to be my last post for a while, as I have all ready flooded this chat...

UPDATE

Leaving my mac to sleep whilst running "Jettison" worked fine, however leaving it in sleep for a length of time threw up the "not ejected properly" warning.

I got in touch with the developer of "Jettison". What he had to say makes so much sense and may apply to others suffering from this irritating issue:

"Open your Energy Saver settings in System Preferences and turn off "Wake for network access". What's happening is that there are scheduled tasks that wake up your machine while it's sleeping - the trouble is that it only wakes partially, and in the process can get itself confused if disks aren't there that it expects to be there (basically, all external disks)."

I'm not 100% sure how network access during sleep provides as an advantage apart from checking for updates etc, or perhaps accesing your mac remotely.

All I can say - is that my system is now behaving as it should. Sleeps and wakes without the "not ejected properly" warning.

The "Jettison" developer went on to comment:

"This seems to be a pretty glaring bug in OS X"

wms44, thanks for that advice. I just turned off "Wake for network access" in Energy Settings and will see if that does any good. I downloaded Jettison and am trying it for 15 days to see if it works. At first, it did eject my disks, but then I started getting the DNEP message again. Will see if that setting helps.