When I try to format my Western Digital "MyBook" external drive, I get an error. It says "could not unmount the disk." What does this mean, and how do I fix it? Also, what's the difference between Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and not journaled?
View 8 RepliesMy Mac Pro [with 4 internal disks, 2 External Disks (Sata Raid 0), and several external FireWire disks and a Voyager disk station] has a little problem with letting externals go Since a few weeks I have a problem with unmounting my externals. After unmount, the unmounted disk will mount again immediately.No time to disconnect cables and/or power. Hinders disk management, backup, and simple disconnecting disks. It only happens with disks (FireWire 400/800/ SATA and USB alike). USB sticks work fine.
Info:
Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I have a Western Digital 500gb external hard drive, with 2 partitions, 'KAINARC' and 'JUNGLEMAC', connected to my Intelmac (Tiger 10.4.11 via my firewire, i have connected via usb but the problem is still the same). I may have shut down the drive improperly to cause this situation.
KAINARC now appears on my desktop, but the partition of JUNGLEMAC does not. I go to disk utility and both partitions are visable, KAINARC is mounted but JUNGLEMAC is not. I cannot mount JUNGLEMAC.
When i try to verify and repair the partition I get the message:
Verify and Repair disk �JUNGLEMAC�
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
So I try to verify and repair the partition KAINARC but get this message:
Verify and Repair disk �KAINARC�
Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk
So I have opened diskwarrior (unbelievably long time to start up and scan disks) in the hope of fixing the hard drive, but when i try to repair I get the error message 'unable to unmount KAINARC'.
I have tried other repair/recover programs but get the same message: 'Could not unmount disk KAINARC'. Im asuming that to fix the hard drive it has to be able to unmount KAINARC.
I recently bought an external 1TB Samsung usb disk for my Imac.I cant get the disk to partition or format correctly.Disk utility just keeps hanging waiting for the disk to reappear!
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iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
how to properly format and partition an ext drive using Disk Utility. I will be making a clone using CCC.
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iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.3)
Installing Imac back to factory settings, erase disk shows could't unmount disk how to solve
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MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4), I bought a usb stick with the OS Xa
I wanted to do a clean install and repartition my iMac running 10.8. It has 2 partitions. I booted from the recovery disk, went to Disk Utility and erased the two partitions. However, when I tried to change to a single partition got the error message "cannot unmount disk."
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iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4)
i'm trying to format a spare external, it's currently formatted to ms-dos for back up dutys on my PS3 but i want to change it to mac os extended
i've just plugged the drive in ( USB ), nothings running on it, or open on the computer from the drive, but disk utility wont erase it, i've checked permission and everythings fine but it just keeps giving me this error
google and apple fail, only thing i can find linked to it refers to operating systems running on the drive,
I want to erase the hard disk. Holding the Option key when restarting the macbook, and enter the Recovery HD, selecting the Disk Utility. Click the hard disk name, and select Erase tab. Click the Erase button, a message displayed: Disk Erase failed. Disk Erase failed with the error:Couldn't unmount disk.
Info:
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I just bought a Seagate Expansion drive, and it has no power button so when it has been plugged in and not in use for a while it unmounts, and then a minute or two later it auto mounts, is there any way to stop it from unmounting and automounting automatically? I would like to control it myself if its possible (id also prefer not to pull the plug each time i want to shut it off).
View 1 Replies View RelatedI am trying to reinstall Lion on my macbook pro, but every time the hdd shows up as 'locked' and when I attempt to format it, it gives me a "volume erase failed with the error - cannot unmount disk" message. It appears as if some files withing the disk are still running but I have no way of quitting them-knowingly. I can specify more if this seems to vague.
Info:
MacBook Pro
I have a Macbook pro 17" (2011) running Mavericks with a Crucial 960Gb SSD and a 750Gb WDC in the optical bay. My ssd is divided into 710 Gb to OS X and 182 Gb to Windows 7 Bootcamp. All was well until the other day when the OS X partition failed to boot. I got the grey screen and the very slow progress bar which after 15 minutes powered the machine off. The Bootcamp partion continues to work without issues. I booted from an install disk and ran disk utility. The OS X partition appears greyed out on the left panel. I attempt a repair disk and after a 15 minute delay it says it is unable to repair the last action being "updating boot support partitions for the volume as required". Its all backed up regularly on time machine but when I boot an install usb and attempt to restore from time machine, the OSX disk does not appear as an option. I go back into disk utility and attemp to erase/repartition the disk to start a new install but it refuses to unmount. I appear to be running out of options,
View 2 Replies View RelatedIm trying to partition my Macintosh HD and install FCP X on the new partition, because I want to still use my Final Cut Studio when needed. I want to install MAC OS on the new partition so I can use it as a start up disk as well. I followed the instructions as directed.
I restarted my computer and held the command and "R" key. In the disk utility I selected my HD and selected 2 partitions. I named them and entered the size and selected GUID as scheme. but when i hit apply i get " Failed, cant unmount disk" how I can successfully partition my HD.
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Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3)
I'm trying to erase my SSD internal drive that is corrupted software (Yosemite).I'm booting from an external with 20GB Yosemite OS & 480GB that contains files I've dragged off the internal SSD.I'm getting the error:Volume Erase failed with the error:Couldn’t unmount disk.How can I get around this?
Info:
MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10), 13"
Unable to Use TIme Machine to backup a new Western Dig external 1 TB drive. It is connected through an adaptor to my Firewire 800 using a Firewire 400 with adaptor. I cant dismount the drive to reformat it to MAC using disk format utility.
View 3 Replies View RelatedMy 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?
View 6 Replies View RelatedI have a 2.5" hard drive connected via USB to my MacBook that keeps unmounting itself. This happens under some (what seems to be) undetermined amount of time, the drive will all of a sudden unmount itself and disappear from the Finder, Disk Utility, et al.
Is there some fix, setting or work around for this? Very annoying. If not, is there a way to re-mount the hard drive without turning it off then on or reconnecting the USB cable?
So so annoyed right now. Today my 12" G4 powerbook started to become slow, lots of spinning wheel, delayed menus etc. I checked file permissions, rebooted and it just kept on getting slower. Eventually it wouldn't get past the white apple screen.
I booted off the Tiger DVD and ran disk utility to fix and repair permissions again. It wouldn't let me repair the disk as I kept getting this error:
'Repair volume failed with error could not unmount disk'
I had to reboot again, and eventually my hard disk no longer appears in Disk Utility. I tried to boot into safe mode and get this:
'"I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus
I0ATAController device blocking bus"
So now I pretty much can't do anything with it. Failed Hard Drive?
I want to plug in my computer into my USB dock, automatically mount my external HD, have TimeMachine do its thing automatically (so far, so good), but then immediately after the backup finishes, I want the computer to automatically unmount the HD. This will allow me to close the laptop and go somewhere without having to constantly eject the HD everytime I unplug the computer.
So - what I need is a program / script / etc that will tell the computer to eject the drive as soon as TimeMachine is done backing up.
G4 Dual 867 2g OS10.5.4. I have 2 external drives (Lacie 200g USB - Western Digital 120g USB) that unmount unexpectedly, sometimes they remount.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI replaced a 1 TB external drive partiotioned in 2 with a 3 TB extrnal drive run/store my corbon copy cloner back up and time machine.
The 3 TB drive was successfully partitioned through the disk utility and both back ups are installed and the initial back up is complete.
My question is about the 1 TB drive. I want to completely erase all data from the drive in order to use it for a different use.
Using disk utility one of the partitions deleted without incident when following the same protocol the second partition produced error messages.
Volume erase failed
Volume Erase failed with the error:
Couldn’t unmount disk.
If I try to eject the disk
It says it will not eject becaus e a program may be using it...
The only program that utilized this partition is Carbon Copy Cloner which is not being utilized on the new 3TB drive.
I do not see where there is a option to have more than on disk chosen for this purpose so am unsure why the disk utility is seeing the old partion as still in use.
I have a MacBook Pro running OSx 10.9.4 and have been successfully using Time Machine with a WD My Passport External Hard Drive for a while. Now (after 10 days with a successful back-up), the computer will not back-up. I have gone into disk utility and tried to erase, partition, and/or repair the disk, but repeatedly get error messages - it can't erase the disk, re-partition the disk or unmount the disk.
Info:
MacBook Pro (13-inch Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), External Hard Drive
I have a Buffalo Ministation 1T (as my portable hardrive), been using it for about 3 months and works perfect, nothing wrong with it at all and time machine formatted it straight away. I recently got the Samsung G3 Station 2T (as a back up to the buffalo) and Time machine says "There was an error erasing the Time Machine backup disk SAMSUN. Could Not Unmount Disk". Then in disk utility when i click erase from (MS - DOS (FAT) To (Mac OS Extended (Journaled)) it says "Volume Erase failed with the error: Could Not Unmount Disk".
Info:MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
I've just transferred my data to a new computer and now need to erase the hard drive on my old one.. I've tried Disk Utility, increased the security, and tried 'erase' but I keep getting an error message "couldn't unmount disk". I've gone into Partitions and tried deleting the HD there as well but I get the same message. I just want to get the computer securely wiped and would like to keep Lion as the operating system.
Info:
Macbook 2GB ram, Mac OS X (10.4.9)
Mac OS 10.5.5 Disk Utility not formatting Ext. HD properly.I was originally able to use my external Hard drive Seagate 300GB right out the box without formatting on my Phillips DIVX-compatible DVD players as well as my Sony PS3 to watch .AVI and MPG files on TV.
Well, last night I needed to swap some files via Time Machine and had to re-formatted my Ext HD. So once that is done I go to format back with Mac OS 10.5.5's Disk Utility, but this time using the MS-DOS (FAT32) option since that is how it will work with the DVD players and PS3. But the drive wasn't recognizable with either DVD players or Sony PS3.
Now here's the kicker! I had my old iBook with Mac OS 10.4 and decided to format the drive using it's Disk Utility version and now the drive is recognizable on both DVD players and PS3.Obviously something is different with the latest version of Disk Utility on Mac OS 10.5.5! Does anyone know why Leopard Mac OS's Disk Utility is formatting differently than previous versions of Mac OS? What's the deal here?good thing I didn't give away my old iBook... Is this an Apple conflict or ???
I have a USB key and would like to format it under NTFS, under Disk Utility, there isn't that option. I don't really have time to google this, does someone know what to do? Is there a console command to do?
View 4 Replies View RelatedJust got a HD and I tried to format it to Mac OS Extended (journaled) From a MBR. After the erase is done it's still MBR!
HD Detail:
Name : FUJITSU MHV2120BH Media
Type : Disk
Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record
Disk Identifier : disk1
Media Name : FUJITSU MHV2120BH Media
Media Type : Generic
Connection Bus : USB
USB Serial Number : 000000000033
Device Tree : /PCI0@0/USB7@1D,7/@3:0
Writable : Yes
Ejectable : Yes
Mac OS 9 Drivers Installed : No
Location : External
Total Capacity : 111.8 GB (120,034,123,776 Bytes)
S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Disk Number : 1
Partition Number : 0
I've got an 8GB Sony Micro Vault Pen Drive that's stopped working. When I opened up Disk Utility it appears but doesn't give me the option to erase.
Can I try doing it with anything else before I bin it and buy a new one.
I am trying to format a SDHC card on my MBP. I am trying to create a recovery SDHC disk for my MBP.
The disk is a Transcend 16gb (class 10).
I formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) w/ a GUID Partition Table but after this, Disk Utility is now showing only 10.38 gb of usable space, but finder is showing me the full amount (15.79 gb). When I look in finder there are NO files or folders on the drive.
I tested trying to put more than 10.38 gb worth of files on the disk and was told there was not enough space. If I format the disk to anything other than Journaled, I get the full 15.79 gb. Has anyone ever experienced this before?
I've been backing up my Powerbook G4 for a few months using Time Machine to an external firewire drive with two partitions; one for the backups, and a much larger one for all my music, video, pictures, etc. I got a new mac mini over the weekend and I want to format the Time Machine partition without erasing the one with all my other files so I can start backing up the Mini.
Is this possible using Disk Utility? If so, how?
Both computers are running Leopard.
