You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

iPhabio Author

Level 1

11 points

Disk not ejected properly

Hi I'm having this issue since I upgraded to Mavericks where almost every time I put my computers to sleep I get the "Disk not ejected propoerly" message and every disk but the system one is not mounted and cannot be found by Disk Utility.

I have a Mac Mini late 2009 and a Macbook Pro 15 mid 2009 and I'm having this issue in both machines. Never had any issues before in any of my machines, not in Leopard, Snow Leopard or Lion.

On my Mini I have two external USB drives and on my MBP I have a SSD, where the system is installed, and a HD (I replaced my optical drive with a bay to install the extra disk).

I researched the issue and found a couple of threads where people sugested to buy a 3rd party app that would unmount the disks at sleep and remount them at wake, but I think this shouldn't be a issue, since it never happened with any version of OSX I had used before.

Is anybody else having this issue as well? Is there any word from Apple on this subject? Can I hope for a fix?

Thanks

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 9:55 AM

Top-ranking reply

Robster50

Level 1

40 points

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 12:05 AM

Hi All

I am not sure if the fix I am about to relay will work for everyone here BUT it has certainly worked for me!

I have a new MBPr which I migrated from my old MBPr and immeadiatly started to get the problems described in this forum.

I have investigaed most of the solutions suggested here and elsewhere without any success, I did install Jettison but while this masked the problem it actually stopped most of my backups working!

So I called Apple support and pushed it very hard until I had a Teir 2 person on the line and she was incredibly helpful, supportive and instisted she woudl ge the problem fixed and she delivered.

She pinned the problem down to the migration from the older machine/prefs corruption.

I will try and record here exactly what we did.

Instructions

1. Pull out your ethernet cable and disable WiFi and any other network connectivity you have.

2. Open Finder, go to your computer and then select you Macintosh HD (or whatever you have renamed it).

3. Go to Macintosh HD - Library - Preferences

4. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and you ewill see a folder called SystemConfiguration

5. Pull this folder onto the desktop.

6. Go to System Preferences - Sharing and change the name of your computer, even just a litlle bit.

7. Reboot

8. Re-enable Wifi and Ethernet

9. If you have installed Jettison, remove it and remove it from your start up items.

You shoudl be good to go.

My machine was constantly ejecting my USB drive, even if left for onnly 10-15 minutes, since doing this I have not had one single ejection and I am into 48 plus hours of run time.

If you like what Jettison does but don't want to eject the disks everytime your computer sleeps and it will!, then try UnDock from the Mac App store.

Very similar functionality BUT it is a manual process.

In my case if I am going to be going out I will simply use the key combo I hae seletced Ctrl-Alt-Command plus U and all my external devices undock.

I really hope this helps one or more you you guys.

Robin

View in context

493 replies

Apr 10, 2014 10:55 AM in response to macfanta

I think it's definitely the OS X energy saver code. I think I've proven this because running "caffeinate" absolutely solves all the problems for me. caffeinate is a program you run at the command line in Terminal. I just keep it running 24/7, so my Mac never sleeps.

GoGas38

Level 1

0 points

Apr 11, 2014 5:08 AM in response to GoGas38

As update to my earlier post about trying disabling the Master/Intelligent Power saving on the APC UPS (may also apply to power strips).

It is now 10 days since disabled this feature on the APC Back-UPS 550 and have not had one Time Machine "Failure to eject correctly" compared to at least daily ones previously. I did at the same time disable the put the hard disk to sleep option in OSX energy saver preferences. I have now re-enabled this option in OSX and will see what happens.

Apr 13, 2014 8:24 AM in response to gabe@

Just tried excluding the Spotlight search feature for one of the drives that keeps ejecting but it didn't solve the problem for me.

And as far as turning off the power saver mode, I don't want to do that. I like having everything go to Sleep when it is not being used. I shouldn't have to do that.

c41

Level 1

4 points

Apr 13, 2014 3:05 PM in response to c41

c41 wrote:

I assumed it was the hub - but then thought to try the hub without the extension cable - and voila, no more error messages. so in this case it looks like a faulty extension cable that works only half the time. So, not that great.

Just to provide further info in my ongoing tests and trying to work out the cause of problems for me...

I'm now not convinced its a faulty extension cable - as If i reorder the chain and test with one of my hd's, (imac -> usb3 hub -> 2m usb 3.0 extension cable -> usb 3.0 hd) (ie: putting the extension cable downstream from the hub) I am not getting the random eject issue (DNEP issue). So perhaps the issue is with my hub and its ability to hold a strong usb 3.0 signal (?) cannot be extended past its own short 20 inch cable.

Long story short, if you're having problems and are also using hubs or extra cables, try taking them out (or isolating parts of the chain) and using your usb devices connected directly to your mac to see if the problem persists.

Apr 18, 2014 4:55 PM in response to iPhabio

I'm having this issue on two different Macs; a 2013 Mac Pro running Mavericks and a 2013 MacBook Air running Mountain Lion. On the Macbook Air it's happening with an OWC SSD in a Sonnet Thunderbolt expansion chassis. On the Mac Pro, I have the same type of Sonnet chassis with the same type of OWC SSD and have had the same issue with that. In order to keep operating, I tried using my USB 3 "MiniPro" SSD and had the same issue with it even while just restoring my data from a Time Machine backup on the network. I have all the usual "don't sleep" system settings in place and the machine is accessible 24/7, but these added drives keep getting "improperly ejected" by themselves to the point of being corrupted so I can't write to them and even had mounting issues and unsuccessful initial attempts at reformatting after this happened. I'm actually sending the OWC drives back to them to be checked out, but after seeing all the stuff on this thread, it seems to be some sort of MacOS issue.

I have a Mac Mini running OSX Server (Mountain Lion) and had the USB3 MiniPro SSD on it (and it has another external Thunderbolt drive) and _never_ have had any issue with it. Note that OSX Server apparently never spins disks down (I had looked into that thinking that allowing the external RAID that I use for backups might have a prolonged life if it could spin down) so I'm thinking this issue is very likely some energy saving measure related to spinning disks down that's not working correctly. I haven't yet tried "caffinate" or some of the other suggestions here (I did try Robin's solution to no avail on the Mac Pro) that may work to keep the "disk sleep" issue or whatever it is come into play. I may try that until there's a fix from Apple.

Podstar

Level 1

0 points

Apr 18, 2014 9:11 PM in response to iPhabio

Well I have had my Buffalo 1tb Thunderbolt drive now hooked to my iMac as my Time Machine backup.

And so far NO disk not ejected messages! I have done nothing to my settings as far as power or any other

configuration item. So I think the whole problem is in the USB3 programming that Apple uses. I have put the

computer to sleep lots of times and shut it down without any problems. So Apple must have the Thunderbolt

programming in pretty good shape for most drives. Hopefully they will fix it for USB3 too.

John

mmanna1

Level 1

8 points

Apr 23, 2014 3:18 PM in response to cjjunior

I am new to Apple buying an iMac in Feb 2014. I am using a USB connected SeaGate Maxtor OneTouch 4 for the Time Machine. I had no problem until OS X updated to 10.9.2. After that I started getting the DNEP message. I implemented the "Spotlight" and the "do not put the hard drive to sleep" methods mentioned in the thread and for the last 3 days, no issues. Fingers crossed.

ataynay

Level 1

0 points

Apr 30, 2014 7:52 PM in response to Robster50

I have spent literally hours on the phone with Apple support, I've gone through six different senior specialists, and nothing they've suggested has worked. I've been on with iTunes specialists, iPod specialists, software, hardware, the whole thing. Nobody has any idea what the **** is going on. I have Jettison but it only works if it can detect a drive to eject.

baguak

Level 1

4 points

May 2, 2014 10:01 AM in response to iPhabio

At 12 thousand hits it is about time to figure this out. This is maddening. It is not just mavericks either. I have USB portable drives and they randomly eject. Nothing in this entire thread has helped. It is a software bug that needs to be addressed. For the love of god Apple fix this!

mmanna1

Level 1

8 points

May 2, 2014 12:05 PM in response to baguak

The Spotlight and "Do not put the drive to sleep" method did not last. Today, my external drive started ejecting again by itself. I have not contacted Apple because based on all of your posts, it would be fruitless to spend the time. Is is possible to send them a raft of e-mails?

kahjot

Level 4

2,463 points

May 2, 2014 9:07 PM in response to ataynay

The "disk ejected improperly" problem when waking from sleep started with Mountain Lion on my Mac Pro. It affects USB3 Seagate Backup Desktop drives connected to a CalDigit USB 3/eSATA card. The same problem occurs in Mavericks. It must be software rather than hardware, because the problem does not exist in Snow Leopard. Fortunately, I use Snow Leopard 95% of the time, for many reasons, not just because of this annoying glitch.

May 3, 2014 8:58 PM in response to kahjot

That's helpful info, although I think external HDDs other than seagate are affected. (I'm assuming you're running different OSs on the same machine and getting ejected (or not) according to which OS your USB3 HDD is plugged into?)

And for what it's worth, Apple are aware of this thread (so mind your language everyone!) and last week I heard the "u" word mentioned during a call-back regarding my long-running case. Fingers crossed.

kahjot

Level 4

2,463 points

May 3, 2014 10:25 PM in response to houstonwehaveaproblem2014

houstonwehaveaproblem2014 wrote:

That's helpful info, although I think external HDDs other than seagate are affected. (I'm assuming you're running different OSs on the same machine and getting ejected (or not) according to which OS your USB3 HDD is plugged into?)

And for what it's worth, Apple are aware of this thread (so mind your language everyone!) and last week I heard the "u" word mentioned during a call-back regarding my long-running case. Fingers crossed.

I would assume that other drives are affected. The Seagates just happen to be the only USB 3 drives I have at the moment. You are correct that there are several operating systems installed on my Mac Pro (Snow Leopard, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks) and that these particular drives are improperly ejected in Mountain Lion (and Mavericks) but not in Snow Leopard. I just booted into Mountain Lion to verify that the USB 3 drive gets ejected improperly but not the FW drive, and this does seem to be the case. I have an OWC enclosure (FW800, USB3, eSATA) on the way, and I will be interested in seeing whether it does any better with USB 3 than the Seagates. Before then, I want to do a bit of testing to see if there is an ejection issue with drives attached to the eSATA ports on the CalDigit card.

kahjot

Level 4

2,463 points

May 5, 2014 9:32 AM in response to kahjot

Following up: I just ran a quick test, hooking up a drive in a quad-interface OWC enclosure to eSATA on the CalDigit combo USB3/eSATA card. This drive is not improperly ejected when the computer sleeps. It's possible that there is an issue with the CalDigit driver for Mountain Lion, but no issue with their Snow Leopard driver; but I am inclined to suspect that it's an OS problem, since most people reporting the improper ejection error don't have my system configuration.

May 7, 2014 6:45 AM in response to kahjot

I'm having the same problem with a pair of drives in a USB connected dual caddy (USB3 compatible).

I'm on my second caddy after initially think the caddy was broken. Both are slightly different. I have tried USB 3 and USB 2 cables and experience the same problem on both. It's not power related as I can be looking at the screen and it'll just decide to drop off. I've set all my power settings to never sleep regardless. These are all connected to a Mac Mini which I ue as my file server.

This all started for me after the 9.0.2 upgrade for Mavericks.

I also have an attached Thunderbolt drive and a second USB 3 drive that I use for offsite backups, neither of which seem to have a problem.

I am utterly fuming about this now. I've spent £60 on a new caddy and I've already lost 1 3TB seagate HDD which is now totally dead due to this problem.

I'm trying running the caddy off my time capsule as a last resort. Failing that I think I'll just buy a Synology NAS instead and dedicate it to my time machine backups. They seem to be a fair bit more reliable than my newer Apple kit.

Disk not ejected properly