Automatically ejecting or unmounting a drive on shut down?

Greetings,
Is there a way to write a script for automatically ejecting or unmounting a drive on shut down?
I have a couple of firewire external drives that need to be unmounted before I shut down the computer and sometimes I forget (running the risk of losing data).
Is it best to do it with Applescript or Automator?
Thanks folks!
G5 1.8 GHz Dual Mac OS X (10.4.8) ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition 256MB AGP

I'm highly confused here.
Part of the clean shutdown process is to
unmount any mounted drives. Adding a logoutHook
script isn't going to change that - it would just do
manually what the OS would do automatically.
Now an unclean shutdown such as a kernel panic
or power outage isn't going to unmount your drives,
but you also don't get an opportunity to unmount the
drives yourself.
What makes you say your drives aren't getting
unmounted?
This may help with my question above.
I have WD drive, and this is what they recommend for me to do.
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/stdadp.php?p_faqid=976&p_created=1052238620&p_sid=Bf4IFXti&p_accessibility=0&p_redi rect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPSZwX3NvcnRfYnk9JnBfZ3JpZHNvcnQ9JnBfcm93X2NudD05OCZwX3 Byb2RzPTAmcF9jYXRzPTExMyZwX3B2PSZwX2N2PTEuMTEzJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZW FyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=&ptopview=1
They want me to unmount the drive before I shut down.
Is there a way to write a script for automatically unmounting a drive on shut down? With a script?
Thanks fo the replies!

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Need to unmount air drive upon shutting down computer?

stupid question time.
I just put a new extreme in as my base station and have a printer and a 500g Lacie HD connected to the extreme through a hub.
Also connected to two different express units to extend the network and stream iTunes to two different entertainment centers.
All four Macs in the house now hooked up and functioning and can print and see the HD and all its files.
When the HD is turned on it now autoloads on each box as it connects to the network.
I've been trashing or unmounting the Lacie each time I shut down each box just as I would if it were wired directly to the box via USB.
Is this unmounting step necessary, or can I just shut down the box w/o that step?
If I need to unmount each time can someone tell me what setting I change to avoid having the drives mount automatically?
The rest of the users in the household will never remember this step and I'm bound to forget as well.
regards
G4 powerbook 12", IBook 12", G4 mirror, IMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) Everything is wireless w/ extreme n11 and 2 express units

Thanks for the info.
Good to know, no harm done by not ejecting the drive.
To seek further clarification if I may, physically turning the drive on and off as long as it's not in active use w/ one of the Mac's on the network is ok?
One further item. Is there a setting change I can make that will prevent the networked HD from automatically mounting?
Cheers.
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
- Sir Winston Churchill
G4 powerbook 12", IBook 12", G4 mirror, IMac Mac OS X (10.4.8) Everything is wireless w/ extreme n11 and 2 express units

What is the best way to shut down an iMac that has frozen during a data transfer? The disk I was writing to will not eject. Stopping "copy items to" doesn't work either_ it is frozen as well. Is there a way to force eject the disk so I can shut down?

Some more information on the above: OS: 7.2
1. None of the shutdown commands would work so I held the power button down and received a prompt that asked if I wished to force eject the drive, I selected
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2. Just recently I installed an eSATA _ Thunderbolt_ port multiplier compliant PCIe card (Seritek Q6G) into a thunderbolt external chassis (OWC Helios) (seritek Q6G).
This freeze data transfer also happened when I connected a Firmtek 5PM external tower to the iMac via thunderbolt cable.
The driver for the seritek Q6G was installed in the iMac previous to connection of any of the devices.
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The initial freeze was with the Firmtek 5PM which is (JBOD)_ I thought that might have had something to do with the freeze_ it being JBOD_ so next I tried the Mercury Elite AL Pro Q2- which is formated in RAID 5. But then froze too.
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Maybe I need another driver?
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Hello BDAqua, thanx for the suggestions. Before I saw this reply I tried to first quit the finder and then to relaunch the Finder but that resulted was a blank gray screen.
In the end I ended up having to power down the iMac.
Fortunately the RAID array that was "active" seems to be fine and also has a firewire 800 connection so I can use it_ just not with thunderbolt until this issue is solved.
I'm going to check in the Applications>Utilities>system log to see if any clues are evident_ thank you for the suggestion.
PS: Nothing of note was obvious as a root cause in the Activity Monitor though.
hmmm....I was told that the Helios and seritek card were compatable and that the Helios didn't require any drivers..it will be a drag if there isn't an easy fix for this since this new PCIe card from seritek is the first to offer port multiplier compatibility for eSATA to thunderbolt...since they are both new I'm hoping that an OS upgrade will be the fix (presently7.2)...we shall see.

External drive not shutting down

I have a 15" MBP running at 2.8GHz with 7200 rpm 500GB disk. This is a new set up, only installed in the last day or so. The MBP is attached to the Apple LED display to which is attached - via USB - a G-Drive Q 500GB external drive. The ext HD is used to store iTunes music and the iPhoto library. When I shut down the system the ext drive does not itself shut down but continues to whir (it sounds as though it starts to shut down but then changes its mind). However, if I put the system to sleep it does shut itself down.
I'm not happy about leaving it all night whirring away and whilst I can manually switch it off this is not something I've previously experienced with other HDs. Any ideas, folks?

If you don't mind pasting the G-Tech rep's response in here, I would indeed be interested in reading it for my own edification.
Interestingly, ejecting the disk causes it to spin down - of course - but as soon as you remove the USB cable from either the MBP or the display the ext drive starts up again.
The drive's enclosure (actually the bridge chipset that it contains) is engineered to make the reasonable assumption that when you "eject" the disk, you're finished with it and you intend to switch it off. There may be nothing in its documentation that says this, but I suspect it's also designed to assume that you'll switch it off before unplugging its USB cable from whatever port it's connected to. If you do that, of course the drive can't spin up again when you unplug the USB cable. My experience suggests that connecting or disconnecting any USB device sends some kind of signal — just the merest blip — over the USB bus, with the result that whatever is sleeping wakes up: the computer itself, the hard drive that's been connected or disconnected via USB, and any other connected USB devices that are in sleep or standby mode (as your hard drive is when it's powered on but not spinning). The sheer variety of extant USB devices, with new ones and new classes of them appearing all the time, makes it understandably difficult to provide a uniform set of rules to which every such device will (or can) adhere.
Any or all of the following may be true — I'm not certain which:
- The USB standard doesn't specify a set sequence for hard disk spin-down, power-off, and disconnection and all the possible permutations thereof, and the precise manner in which a drive should behave when that sequence is or isn't followed.
- If it does specify all that, not all external drives adhere scrupulously to the specification. (I know for a fact that not all external drives behave the same.)
- Occasionally a user fails to read all the documentation that comes with his device to find out how it's supposed to work. Yes — a shocking idea, barely conceivable!
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Recently I've noticed that if I have a thumb drive in a USB port on my Mac Book Pro, after a while if I am not actively using a file, I get the red error screen that says the device has been improperly ejected, even though it is still plugged in and I have not attempted to eject it. Any suggestions?

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Since upgrading to Mavericks, when I put my Mac to sleep both my audio interface and my time machine hard drive are put to sleep also. Effectively making it so that when I start up my macbook again it means removing both the aforesaid from the usb outlets and putting them in again so that the mac recognises them.
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
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Is there a way to have external drives automatically eject on shutdown?

Hello. First post. I've owned this laptop for about eight months now. I just purchased a second external firewire drive, and today I forgot to eject either drive before shutting down. The Mac froze up, and I had to use Applejack (which I had luckily just installed) to bring it back. I'm worried I'll do this again, and with a videography business, this could result in a possible loss of data. I've googled and looked around here a bit...but as the post title says...is there a way to add this functionality to a Mac to avoid this in the future? Thanks.

Hi Alex Matson-
Greetings and welcome to the Apple Discussion boards
As mentioned, selecting "shutdown" should gracefully close the drives.
As an aside, I have a video business, and I find that 3 backups of all of my data has saved my rear more than once. One backup sits on my desktop, one is in a fireproof safe, and one is stored at a different location entirely.
Should something catastrophic happen, like a flood, you will still have all of your data available on the off-site drive.
You should also power your drives from the same UPS as your Mac.
Luck-
-DaddyPaycheck

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Good Morning,
In my experience there shouldn't be any unnecessary wear and tear on your hard drive from shutting down your computer unless you are doing an EXTREME amount of startup/shutdown cycles.
The average user should not put enough strain on the drive to even be noticed from normal startup/shutdown cycles.
Hope this helps! 
David

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In order for me to better assist you could you please provide the full make and model of the PC you have. Providing me that information will better help me help you.
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Clicking the White Kudos star on the left is a way to say Thanks!
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Good Morning,
In my experience there shouldn't be any unnecessary wear and tear on your hard drive from shutting down your computer unless you are doing an EXTREME amount of startup/shutdown cycles.
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 Cheers, Tom

Automatically ejecting or unmounting a drive on shut down?

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