OS X :: External HD Refuses To Eject - No Obvious Process Preventing?
Dec 10, 2008
One of my external hard drives simply refuses to eject/un-mount, and I've done everything I can think of to terminate any processes and/or applications that may be using the drive and preventing it from being ejected properly, but I haven't had any success. Is there some Mac-Jedi way of going about isolating what might be preventing this drive from ejecting properly? I've scoured the activity monitor but can't figure out what might be preventing the drive from ejecting?
I rarely use my superdrive, so I thought it might be more practical to have the button eject my external hard drive(s). Is there a way to do this through OS X or a third party app?
This week I discovered that the hard drive on my white Core 2 Duo macbook is failing. It's of course out of warranty. I have superduper and am in the process of getting things ready to swap out the drive for a new one. Before going ahead with the new install, however, I wanted to test out the bootability of my superduper backup. I held option while restarting and chose to boot from the backup icon. The OSX tiger splash screen appeared and slowly booted up but then a login window appears asking for a name and a password. I assumed it was asking for my administrator name and password.
Therefore I entered that information. However, after entering the information and clicking on the login button the window shook back and forth and shook off my password as if to say "No. No!" I tried entering the admin information again and again. I tried the short name. I tried to reset my user information. Nothing worked. So, I tried to redo my backup thinking that there might be some issues on that side of things. But now my backup isn't complete. It's lagging at about 14 gigs shy of the full copy. I want to get this machine back to working order but am running stuck.
I am using Safari (latest version: 5.1.5 (6534.55.3)) on a MacBook Pro (1.83Ghz Intel core duo), running OSX v.10.6.8 and have a curious issue that occurs whilst navigating between pages in Safari on occasion (not all the time):I can click on the link or navigate to the page, and the page appears to finish loading, but the previous page is still visible.Despite appearances, the page has in fact loaded, and clicking somewhere on the screen could load a link from this invisibly loaded page.It is just that the window hasn't refreshed.Is there an obvious solution to get the screen to refresh? Reloading (refreshing with cmd-R) the page doesn't do anything; the only way of making it visible is to force a window redraw by adjusting the size of window.
I have an external hard drive, but it seems to be either corrupt or malfunctioning in some other way. When I plug it in it works fine for a while, but soon after I get a "Disk was not properly ejected" error.
If I try to unplug and plug the disk in again, Finder won't recognise it until I've rebooted my computer.
I can't be bothered rebooting all the time, so is there a process I could kill instead that would relaunch itself and start off "fresh"?
I'm trying to use Time Machine to backup 44G used to an External Hard Drive with 76.5G available. The backup process always fails. I thought I might have to use Disk Utility to "zero" out data on the external hard drive but the message pops up with an estimated 24 hours to "zero" out all data on the external Hard drive. I have an iMac G5 with 10.5.8
I am backing stuff up to an external drive (G-Raid 1TB, if that matters), and the process will randomly stop and not allow me to cancel out the copy process once it does so. I have had multiple problems with many drives (lacie and g-raid) in the past before, on different machines (G5 tower, mac pros, intel imacs, etc) so for some reason in my head I figure it as random. I'm guessing there's a hiccup somewhere.
They're all formatted correctly to handle large files, and I know it's not good, but if it hangs up and I pull power or shut down, it'll unfreeze and remount (about 80% of the time success rate, 20% of the time it wont even show up, not even in disk utility). This also occurs when I am going from external drive to external drive and internal drive to external drive. It seems very random. And finder seems to stall out too (like it is now) and when I try to relaunch it, it will not come back until one of the drives that is causing the problem is disconnected from the computer.
I have a Mac Pro with several raid array and single drives attached (1x Wiebetech RTX600 Raid 5 through SCSI; 1x CalDigit HDElement Raid 5 through miniSAS; 4x internal drives).Unfortunately, due to various reasons (electricity outtage and software crashes), I'm experiencing system crashes and need to hard re-start the system. Upon restart, I am able to boot back into Mac OS X, but sometimes one, or both of the raid arrays will not mount.However, after a period of 0.5 - 2 hours, the array would magically re-appear again. Sometimes this might even happen to internal drives that I had mounted inside the chassis of the Mac Pro.
I am wondering if anyone knows of a good osx based alternative to Process Explorer on windows - what I'd like to be able to do is graph CPU and memory for a specific process and ideally see what network connections a specific process has open. atMonitor seems to do this pretty well generally, but not for specific processes (this is for monitoring a multiplayer flash game).
I am a brand new Mac user. I have just purchased a MacBook Pro and need advice as to the best way to use my external hard drive with iTunes.I have read previous answers regarding the above question, however I do not currently have any music on my new iTunes and it is already all on my external hard drive. Does this mean I need to complete a slightly different process? Also what must I do when I load new music on to my external?
I've been searching for days in my spare time and I can't find any similar threads. If there are, please forgive.
Connected my external HDD to my MBP after installing Leopard, and Time Machine worked just dandy.
Leopard will not however eject the disk, no matter how I do it (File>Eject; Cmd+E; pressing the lil eject button next to the disk closes the Finder window but nothing else). I got my MBP for mobility, but I am afraid to disconnect the HDD if I can't eject it. That ominous message about damaging my backed-up files may have something do with my trepidation.
Supposedly, the external is in use and cannot be ejected, but i don't think it's in use. I've only recently been encountering this problem, and i have no idea why. I've tried quitting every application, but it still claims to be in use.
I just got an external LaCie DVD burner (long story). It works great, but as of right now I can apparently only eject it by right-click > eject or drag it to the "trash." Is there any way to allow me to just use the button on the drive or tie it to the eject button on the keyboard when it's connected, or even another key command like Opt-Eject?
My external hard drives simply refuses to eject/un-mount, and I've done everything I can think of to terminate any processes and/or applications that may be using the drive and preventing it from being ejected properly, but I haven't had any success. Is there some Mac-Jedi way of going about isolating what might be preventing this drive from ejecting properly? I've scoured the activity monitor but can't figure out what might be preventing the drive from ejecting?
Anyone have suggestions? I have a single 1.8ghz g5, 1gb ram, 10.4.10. I have a maxtor OneTouch III USB 2.0 200gb drive attached to it.
I can not seem to eject/unmount this drive. Every time i hook it up I just have to end up pulling the USB plug or turning the drive off suddenly to get it to "eject" but then i get the improper device removal error/warning message.
I have tried dragging to trash, I have tried apple E (which is what I usually do to any device) and I have tried going into disk utility and ejecting/unmounting from there as well. no dice.
I've added the Eject button to my menubar, but its only showing my Superdrive, not my external. Is this correct or can I get my external HD to show up too?
I know this has been disccused ad nausium many places, but in reading 100s of posts Ive just confused myself and was hoping someone could help me make sense of all I've heard.I have a ibook g4 and use a WD 500gb external hard drive to keep all my music/pictures etc.Last night when I was moving files around (I dont think it was actually in the process of transferring files when this occurred, but there is a slight chance it was) I accidently hit enter instead of shift which told my computer to open all of the 1000+ folders that I had selected (DOH!) after working for an hour it seemed to be all frozen so with concern I turned the computer off and restarted.Suprise suprise, my external will no longer mount. - Disk Utility recognizes it but says there was an error on exit.Tim
I have a MacBook Pro that I use sometime on Apple Cinema Display. On the USB ports of the display I attached an Western Digital external hard drive. Now, when I want to unplug my laptop from the display, should I eject the external hard drive first?
Supposedly, the external is in use and cannot be ejected, but i don't think it's in use. I've only recently been encountering this problem, and i have no idea why. I've tried quitting every application, but it still claims to be in use.
I just got an external LaCie DVD burner (long story). It works great, but as of right now I can apparently only eject it by right-click > eject or drag it to the "trash." Is there any way to allow me to just use the button on the drive or tie it to the eject button on the keyboard when it's connected, or even another key command like Opt-Eject?
I recently bought a new 1TB external seagate hard drive to use as media storage for FCP on my G5 quad. I brought it home and started it up, partitioned into 3 pieces and then I ejected it.
Now it won't be recognized by my Mac. I feel like I've tried everything. Last night I unplugged the firewire and power cable, then this morning I flicked it on just to see what happened. It worked! I added some files to the drive and ejected it again to see if it would restart. Nothing...
So I waited another 15 minutes and tried again, nothing.
Any idea why the drive seems to turn into a brick after I eject it?
Hopefully it'll work after I wait another few hours again, but that doesn't seem like a working hard drive to me.
A series of backup related problems have occurred: Upgraded to Lion and then TM failed to backup: "Error while copying to backup disk" (using Lacie d2 Quadra HD that has been performing well for 2 years). I also have a second Iomega MiniMaxHD with a carbon copy clone of my Snow Leopard mac on one partition and a second partition with other iphoto/.itunes/ document backup and now I cannot copy my iphoto library to this HD for a backup: " Operation could not be completed because the item "iphoto Library" is in use", even though all applications are off.
Tried multiple times and the transfer of the iphoto library always fails midway through. I have lost both my TM backup and my ability to backup to other drives because a new problem has arisen: every time I try to load an external HD I can't eject it: can't eject because error message says that the "Finder is using" the external HD and then I have to Force Eject, risking data loss.
I have so far tried: restart mac, reset PRAM, unplug/verify and repair disk multiple times for all of the external HDs as well as my Macintosh HD; I have erased the Lacie HD and reformatted it while rebooting from Lion Recovery HD and then TM still failed; I have also tried deleting from the Library my TM plist as well as my iphoto p.list. I even tried using a brand new Iomega Minimax HD and TM still failed
I have Lion 10.7.4, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM
This is a major issue for me, as I feel like I'm going to end up damaging my hard drive.
I am downloading a legal torrent to my external hard drive, however when I quit Transmission and try to eject my external drive, nothing happens. Snow Leopard doesn't even say it is in use like it is meant to. It just does nothing to eject the drive.
So I end up having to yank the USB plug out.
What gives? It ejects normally as long as I don't download to it.
How do I safely "eject" my 2 TB Seagate external hard drive after backing my Mac Air onto it? I need to update my operating software, never had since I first got it. So I bought the Seagate HD, plugged it in and Time Machine just started running. Now I'd really like to be able to confirm that my entire machine backed up completely, and I think it is best to unplug the hard drive before upgrading the OS...is that right?
I am having problems ejecting the external hard drive that I use to back up my laptop. It is a 2012 MacBook Pro running Mountain Lion OSX 10.8.5. My external hard drive is a WD 2 TB My Book Studio. I use it to back up my laptop with Time Machine. Every time I try to eject my disk now I am told that "The disk (Diskname) wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it." I have tried some solutions like to stop Spotlight from indexing the disk and to try and turn off TimeMachine, but neither of these worked. The only thing that has worked so far is to log out of my user name and log back in with a guest user and eject it from there. This takes up a lot of time and is ultimately not really a sustainable way of working on my computer.Â
I was using an external drive for Time Machine for the past year and a few months On Saturday a message came up that it failed. I tried initiating the Time Machine again but failed. I decided to get a new bigger external drive to use for Time Machine. When trying to eject the external drive I was using it gives me this message:
Would it be safe just to force eject or log out and then log back in again to eject it so I can use my new external drive?
I have a 27" Imac and want to use an old 19" monitor as an external unit. I have it hooked up and turned on. Just the old wallpaper shows on it. There isn't an icon or anything diff on my iMac screen for it. How do I use the external? I realize this is pretty dumb, but I'm a newbie here and my Mac expert son is in NC....
