"disk not ejected properly" but is still mounted on desktop?

Hi,
I get a "The disk was not ejected properly" message, yet if I go to the Finder's desktop the drive is still mounted and accessible and read/write works fine.
I've witnessed it happen once while viewing the desktop. The drive disappears momentarily for about 1.5 - 2 seconds, then shows up again. So It DOES eject, but it instantly re-mounts, and I mean in under 2 seconds and I've neder experienced a drive intentioanlly unmount/remount this fast in my life. It does happen more often when waking from sleep, but not only in that instance.
Been having this bug since OS X Lion and on to the current version of Marveicks. I am posting this under Mavericks because it's not hardware specific to anything other than USB and LaCie. I am experiencing it on multiple machines, different models, with different external LaCie drives of differing types, with different USB cables. This does not only happen when waking from sleep (as most threads seem to indicate), it sometimes happens for no reason.
The common factors:
All the external drives are LaCie drives (though vastly different models).
Both affected Macs are 2012+ models with Thunderbolt interphases and USB 3 ports (am using USB ports for USB drives, no Thunderbolt adaptors).
I could suspect LaCie, but since it's new since Lion... well you get the picture. Something leads me to suspect a bug in OS X USB protocol, possibly on software, maybe even in firmware. Might be linked to energy saving. I have "sleep drives when possible" enabled, and though it might help to turn that off (I haven't tested yet) I just don't feel I should need to, I want unused drives to spin down and save energy.

Hello there The Heftster,
It sounds like your external drives are periodically disconnecting on their own from the computer causing the prompt saying that the drive was not ejected properly. I would start by resetting the PRAM on your computer with this article:
OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph14222
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Option, Command (⌘), P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option-Command-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.Continue holding the keys down until your Mac restarts, and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Resetting PRAM may change some system settings and preferences. Use System Preferences to restore your settings.
As well as the SMC on your computer:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

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Disk Not Ejected Properly on wake

In the past week or so I am getting the standard Disk Not Ejected properly message everytime I wake my iMac up. However, all of my disks are still mounted properly and accessible so I have no idea what it thinks has been ejected.
I have been running on Mountain Lion with no issues since it became available and this problem has only just started.
Any suggestions?

I am one of those who had experienced this kind of problem. My former Time Machine disk used to automatically eject itself when my iMac sleeps, hence upon waking up my iMac. i always get the error message that the disk was not properly ejected.
From what I was able to gather from my experience, until the time that I found a workable solution, I think I can say that the problem is most probably caused by the incompatibility of certain external drives with how the iMac operates when on sleep and upon waking up. Some external drives are just not able to cope with how the iMac tries to remount a connected disk after it wakes up from sleep. There are just some external drives that cannot continue to be mounted after the iMac wakes from sleep. There are just some external drives that are not responsive enough. In other words, the existence of the problem lies with the type of external drive you are using.
My former Time Machine disk, the problematic one, was an Imation M300 Apollo 1 TB external disk. It unmounts everytime my iMac went to sleep, but does not remount after waking up the iMac. The disk will continue to be unmounted until I physically remove its USB connector and replug it in the iMac.
I replaced my former Time Machine disk with my current one, a Transcend Storejet 1 TB. And the problem went away. The Transcend disk continue to be mounted after the iMac is woken up even from the longest of sleep. I have even the energy saving option "put the hard disk to sleep..." checked. The Transcend disk comes with a Y cable, i.e. it has two USB connectors, but I only connect the one for both data and power--and it still remains mounted even after waking the iMac from sleep.
The sad realization, however, is that since there are only some external drives that are not able to work with the iMac, no matter how many those some may seem to be, it will be highly unlikely for Apple to itself fix this kind of a problem.
I, therefore, make the following recommendations:
1. Check first if your problematic disk has a firmware upgrade available. In some cases, the firmware upgrade may be enough to make the disk more responsive to the iMac waking up.
2. If there is no firmware upgrade available, check if your power/data USB cable is properly working.
3. If your power/data USB cable is in order, and the problem still persists, I think it is inevitable that you have to replace the problematic disk with a newer one that could respond well with the iMac's wake/sleep operation. With what disk will you replace your problematic one? I can only recommend from my personal experience the Transcend disk I mentioned earlier. You may also search this forum on other brands of disks that may also work.
Regards.

My iMac is disconnecting all my media hard drives and giving "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message since updating to OSX 10.9

Ever since I updated to OSX version 10.9 on my iMac, it is disconnecting all of my media hard drives and giving me the message: "Disk Not Ejected Properly." My hard drives are connected to my iMac through a Nitro Professional 8-port Firewire 800 hub/repeater, and a Firewire 800 cable from the Nitro hub connects to the back of my iMac. This configuration has been working fine for over a year. Suddenly, and immediately after performing the update about a week ago, the drives won't stay connected for more than a few seconds before the iMac disconnects from my drives. I've tried restarting and reconnecting many times and the same thing keeps happening.
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Thanks in advance for your knowledge and assistance!

Hello Roma2001,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your FireWire hub.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

Yosemite "[Thunderbolt 2] disk not ejected properly" after sleep

Since installing Yosemite, when my Mac Pro comes out of sleep, I get a "Disk not ejected properly" for each disk drive attached by Thunderbolt 2. This all worked fine on Mavericks.
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Re: Yosemite ejects external drives
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OSX 10.9 w/Mavricks Disk Not Ejecting Properly notification

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Hi there,
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Regards,
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This is happening to me but not after reboot it just happens randomly for no reason. I have tried repairing permissions nothing showed regarding usb, verified the HD came back ok, verified the external having the issues no problems found.
Mine is a 2TB seagate desktop external usb2 connection and powered.
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"Disk Not Ejected Properly" persists in Mavericks 10.9.1

I was hoping that Mavericks 10.9.1 would solve my "Disk Not Ejected Properly" problem that started with Mavericks. No such luck. Are others having this problem?

I rechecked the box and it seemed to fix a different problem - UPS clicking. Turns out my Thunderbolt TM was disconnected for several days. So I have again unchecked and am hoping to come back to some semblance of normalcy. There are other discussions about the new chip's different energy levels and the altered choices in "energy saver" settings; and what seems to go wrong related to "sleep" or something like it.
I am surprised that Apple doesn't have a clear instruction page on sleep, energy saver settings, and how its Mavericks computers interact or may interact with the OS and its sleep options (available and hidden/inherent). While I had heard rumors that 10.9.2 would fix the external hard drive problem, I am seriously beginning to doubt it.
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I am getting error message "Disk Not Ejected Properly Eject "FreeAgent GoFlex Drive" before disconnecting or turning it-" randomly.

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Has anyone else experienced this issue?
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Mountain Lion Upgrade, now I am getting a "disk not ejected properly" error

I just upgraded to Mountain Lion and I am getting a "disk not ejected properly" error on my external time machine backup drive. Can I fix this myself?

Maybe the Seagate needs some firmware or other update to be compatible. Tried Google or Seagate for any info?
Sometimes with TM you almost need to start fresh... keep what you have as is as backup archive.
And don't use just one backup set or method. Redundant, one off line, and clone your volumes in addition to what TM offers.
If you can only use it via USB what about FW or eSATA?

When use the my usb it says disk not ejected properly

when use the my usb it says disk not ejected properly?

that just means you didnt take out the usb properly, always before you take out a usb, right click it and press reject. the usb icon should go away from your desktop, now its ok to take out your USB.

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

I get this error as well, and my two external SSD drives are practically useless under Mavericks. Many freezes during read/writes. Have had several pretty critical issues with Mavericks so far- really regret upgrading. My fault for upgrading so early, I almost never do that. Paying for it now. Hopefully a forthcoming patch will fix at least the external drive problems, this is a real killer.
Update: at least it seems Mavericks has not corrupted the data on my SSD's. I have been able to mount them on my wife's Air (w/ Mountain Lion) and copy the disks over the network. Not ideal at all, but at least this saves me days of downloading backups from Backblaze. And the SSD's are still viable.
iMac 27" late 2012
Message was edited by: Bitmatt

IPhoto Says 'Disk Not Ejected Properly'

I'm using iPhoto '11 version 9.4.3 (720.941), OS 10.8.4.
I am trying to load jpg files from a SDHC Card onto my laptop using a SDHC card reader. The jpg's come from my 'critter cam.'
I plug the reader into the USB port. It looks at the device, sees all jpg's and opens iPhoto. I choose Import. Then I get the error messages below.
I have been doing this successfully and repeatedly for a long time - over a year on a regular basis. And now all of a sudden, I can't get the images off the disk. It stops immediately and renders the following two error messages.
Two error messages:
First:
"The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before unplugging it or turning it off."
But I did not eject, unplug or turn off the disk. It's still plugged in.
Second:
"Unreadable Files: 58 The following files could not be imported. The file is in an unrecognized format." And then it lists all of the files on the chip.
Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks Larry.
Just for the record in case someone else gets this same problem...
I was able to see the photos in the finder. I'm still looking at how to reformat the card.
After reading your response, I reasoned that there are 4 components involved here: critter cam, card, card reader, laptop.
So starting with the cheapest component, replace components until the problem is resolved.
As soon as I plugged the card into my digital SLR camera and then connected to the laptop via the camera's USB cable, all problems were resolved. So it had to be the card reader.
So until I can get a new card reader, I'll use the camera as the card reader.
Thanks for making me think. Ouch!

OSX Mountain Lion "Disk not ejected properly" USB-Finder not responding

Hello,
I just upgraded to OSX Mountain Lion late 2008 macbook pro. Whenever i plug in a USB, it detects it fine. But then when i copy anything to it, it starts but then give the error message "Disk was not ejected properly". After that, my finder hangs and i have to force quit it. And then it doesnt launch unless I do a restart of my computer by pressing and holding the power key because normal restart doesnt work. Happen to anyone? any solution? Thanks!

Connect the USB device then right or control click the USB device icon on the Desktop, then click Eject.
Then re connect the device and try copying files.

Disk not ejected properly notification after upgrade

Hi,
I have a 500GB Western Digital external drive configured for Time Machine. I recently upgraded to Mavericks, now when my computer goes to sleep I get the dreaded "Disk was not ejected properly" message. With Mountain Lion I have experienced this issue when my macbook pro goes to sleep when running a vm in Parallels, but never at any other time.
It wouldn't really be a big deal, but I am connected to a thunderbolt display and when I wake the computer up, I have to unplug the thunderbolt cable and plug it back it in to get my thunderbolt display to turn back on. This is a real pain!
Not sure if this is a bug or configuration issue. Perhaps I might need a third party app like Jettison.
Please help.

Thanks for the info. I reset the SMC and my mbp starting acting very funky. I started experiencing some odd behaviour with my internet connection, so I shutdown my mbp and left it off for at least a minute. When I rebooted I was able to connect wirelessly and hit the sites I could not before.
All good; however, I noticed that my external drive was showing as a usb device and not Time Machine drive. I selected the external drive from the Time Machine prefrences and now all seems to be working fine.
I think this was the actual issue I was experiencing after upgrading. I don't think the SMC reset was necessary in this case, but I gave it a shot because I had noticed the symptom of fans running frequently when there is minimal load and proper ventilation.
Thanks.

Disk not ejected properly while making a backup through time machine

Hi everyone. I'm trying to make a backup by using time machine on an external hard drive LaCie of 2 TB. However, after storing 5 to 10 GB the backup stops and I get a message window saying that the disk has not been properly ejected and that I have to eject the disk before turn it off. Then I thought it was a format problem, I went to the disk utility and I chose the Mac OS extended (journaled) format and the GUID partition table since my Mac is intel-based. I started the backup again and I got the same message window saying that I desconected improperly my external drive. The strange thing is that in both cases the backup seems to be okay at the beginning and stores 5 to 10 GB, more or less, then it stops and the message window shows up. Then I went further, I thought I could fix the problem by completely erasing the disk; I went to the disk utility and in the erase tab I chose the Zero Out Data option in the security options. The system starts erasing the external hard drive, but after a while other message window shows up saying that there was an error eliminating the disk because of a POSIX reports, that the operation could not be completed and that memory could not be assigned. Does anyone know what's going on? What am I doing wrong? Thank you in advanced for your support.

Most likely, there's a damaged/corrupted file on your Mac that Time Machine is choking on.
Erase the disk (quick erase is almost always fine) and start over.
If the backup fails, See #C2 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. It will show you how to locate the message(s) that describe the problem, then help you fix it. If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
EDIT: I should add, sometimes when Time Machine has a problem, it force-ejects the drive.

"disk not ejected properly" but is still mounted on desktop?

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