Ejecting USB drives

A friend of mine has recently bought a macbook pro to upgrade his old Dell laptop. He is a keen photographer but daren't use CF cards with the macbook pro because when he ejects the cards the light stays ON on the reader. With his windows machine the light goes off when the card has been successfully ejected. He has been told that removing the card with power connected has a 1 in 50 chance of destroying the card.
I have never had a problem ejecting cards from the Mac but this doesn't reassure him. I was wondering if anyone know why the light doesn't go off when ejecting cards on the mac (I have noticed this with USB drives too). Does the light actually mean anything as far as turning the power off or is it just an indication from the software that the drive is ready to unplug?
He has measured the current in the USB cable when the windows machine ejects the drive and is convinced that power is being reduced to a minimum level somehow, I suspect this is just due to the fact that the LED is no longer on, but I would like to be able to give a definitive answer to this.

I was using my girlfriends USB 128MB stick last night, with no red light showing (well, not that I noticed), then when i dragged it to the ejector/recycle bin, the red light came on constantly (I presumed to tell me that it was ready to remove). I waited 5 seconds to see if it would go out but didn't.

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  • Can't eject USB drive

    Hi,
    This is driving me crazy. Every time I used a USB drive, I am told that it can't be ejected because a program is using it. Sometimes it says the finder is using it (it shouldn't be: if the finder is using it it is only listing it as a drive). Relaunching the finder using "force quit" doesn't help: it just changes the message to "one or more programs may be using it". Shutting down every single program - none of which are using it anyway - doesn't help. I eventually get a force eject option, which I use, though that comes with a warning that force eject may damage files.
    Any help appreciated. Running Yosemite on a late 2010 Air (though I get the same problem on my 2011 Macbook pro).
    Thx.

    I've been seeing the same problem (and reported it as a bug) with a number of applications (though not the Finder). When a file is in use it is flagged by the system Yosemite seems to either not change the file's flag to not in use or the system isn't getting that the flag has changed. So far exiting the program has solved it for me in every instance - though it is a pain. I think for now it is something we'll just have to live with until Apple tracks it down.

  • How to eject USB drive?

    I have a USB drive that doesn't want to eject.  It get the error that it is in use and can't be ejected.  Yet, nothing is using it.
    I'm trying to eject through Finder.  Any ideas how to resolve this?

    Worked just fine.  Thanks.
    Funny how Apple tech support can never solve anything.  After an hour, they'll finally say, force quit everything, restart then restore to factory defaults.  That's the common workflow.  Get out the big hammer.

  • Ejecting USB drives - very slow

    Since updating to Yosemite, my brand new iMacs (work machines) are all noticeably much slower ejecting USB flash drives. Really slow. These are new, top spec iMacs with clean installs and pretty empty harddrives.
    Anyone else noticing this?

    I was using my girlfriends USB 128MB stick last night, with no red light showing (well, not that I noticed), then when i dragged it to the ejector/recycle bin, the red light came on constantly (I presumed to tell me that it was ready to remove). I waited 5 seconds to see if it would go out but didn't.

  • How to eject USB drive safely when it isn't mounted?

    Hi,
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    I have had this problem some time ago but I think I just pulled the drive out that time. I don't want to risk damaging the hard drive because it contains important data. This didn't happen before I (unfortunately) upgraded to Yosemite and have had some other faults too.
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    If it’s not mounted, it can just be unplugged. To double-check, choose Utilities from the Finder’s Go menu; if all the volumes on a drive appear in gray in the sidebar, it can be safely unplugged. If the drive doesn’t appear at all, the computer doesn’t recognize that it’s connected, and it can be safely unplugged.
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  • "Drive not properly ejected"--How do I keep a USB drive mounted constantly?

    I have a 2-month-old iMac, and have had a USB external SATA-enclosure 2.5" 500gb drive attached the whole time. About a week ago, it started randomly giving the "Drive not properly ejected" message and usually it remounts after a few seconds. Sometimes it doesn't and I have to unplug it and plug it back in.
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    Kappy,
    Thank you for your help with this problem!
    Your hypothesis for the drive/enclosure being a problem is good thinking, however:
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    -I can switch similar drives with iMac and AirPort Extreme, and the problem stays with the iMac.
    -It has nothing to do with Time Machine as I am using a FireWire drive to boot, and the iMac internal 1TB for Time Machine.
    -A friend suggested a cable problem, but I have tried many combinations and it wouldn't explain why suddenly after 2 months three sets of USB cables can fail at the same time (at least one, I used for 3 years with Mac Mini.)
    I now have a 111gb drive connected to my AirPort Extreme and it has been copying files to my FireWire drive slowly but surely for two hours now. The same drive disconnected after 13 minutes on the iMac. All indications are pointing to OSX 10.6.7. The perfect test (for anyone with convenient resources) would be to install Snow Leopard from disc on a clean Mac and not upgrade it, plug in a USB drive and see if it can last a day or two. Then, upgrade to 10.6.7 and see what happens. I hope someone can try this.
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  • Seagate USB drives appear on desktop but can't be read or ejected.

    I have two different Seagate 1TB USB drives, both formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled) using Disk Utilities that work fine on my early 2013 MacBook Pro running Mavericks but cause various issues on my late 2013 Mac Pro (also running Mavericks). The drives will show up when connected to the Mac Pro, but when I try to view the contents of the drives, nothing appears and I cannot eject them. Sometimes, I end up with a spinning beach ball in the Finder. I have run the hardware test on my Mac Pro and no issues were detected. I have also Verified and Repaired the disks using Disk Utilities on my Macbook Pro and no issues were detected for those operations.
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    >> also Verified and Repaired the disks using Disk Utilities on MacBook Pro
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  • 2.5 USB drives can not be ejected for some odd reasons

    Ever since the last update every time i connect a 2.5 USB drive i can never eject according to Disk Utilities, i get that "quit applications" connected to the drive etc,
    I restarted, re connected the drive and tried running disk tools again ad with nothing open again it says the same thing!
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    Please advise
    Cheers

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    I also saw a donationware application MacWorld magazine reviewed called “What’s Keeping Me” which is supposed to do exactly what you are getting.
    Here’s the WKM website:
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  • Lost data on external usb drive when ejecting

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  • USB Drives Ejecting Themselves randomly

    I am having a very odd, and potentially "dangerous" (as it may lead to corrupt backups) problem with the USB ports on my brand new late 2011 Macbook Pro 13". The problem is that any usb drive (incl. Powered External HDDs, USB sticks, memory card readers etc.) eject themselves randomly while connected to any of the two available USB ports. I have read through several discussions about this issue but have not been able to find any explanation or solution to this. The thing which bothers me most is that when I wiggle the usb plug in the port on the laptop, the drives eject SOMETIMES, and sometimes they just eject without me doing anything, and sometimes they don't eject at all; so I don't know if it is a hardware fault, or something which I can fix myself!
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    So, my MacBook Pro has now undergone a logic board swap, and when I got it back from repair everything seemend perfectly fine. The external drives which kept getting ejected are not ejecting any more, no matter how much I wiggle the plug in the USB socket. Then yesterday I tried a small USB stick, and bam - it's getting ejected again when touched slightly. I tried 2 different sticks and the same thing is happening. Then I tried the HDDs again - no problems. Then tried the USB sticks again - no problems. This is really driving me crazy, I cannot understand why it happens so intermittently and then works prefectly like nothing ever happened. Also, it can't be a software issue since physically moving the USB plug affects it. Now I am not sure if I should take it back for another repair and keep fighting, or just learn to live with it. I am wondering if it is simply a design fault with the MacBook Pro, or something to do with the way the USB ports are built. Any ideas on what I should do?

  • Leopard ejects DVDs Region 0 from USB drive that is region specific

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    After opening case for another DVD movie related issue I am planning to open now whole bunch of them. The choices by Apple engineers are strange and might not follow paper written standards unfortunatelly.
    Sincerely,
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    I have more precise results of recent tests:
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  • USB Drives Ejecting Everything.

    I have had my 15" Macbook pro since 2010.
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    So, my MacBook Pro has now undergone a logic board swap, and when I got it back from repair everything seemend perfectly fine. The external drives which kept getting ejected are not ejecting any more, no matter how much I wiggle the plug in the USB socket. Then yesterday I tried a small USB stick, and bam - it's getting ejected again when touched slightly. I tried 2 different sticks and the same thing is happening. Then I tried the HDDs again - no problems. Then tried the USB sticks again - no problems. This is really driving me crazy, I cannot understand why it happens so intermittently and then works prefectly like nothing ever happened. Also, it can't be a software issue since physically moving the USB plug affects it. Now I am not sure if I should take it back for another repair and keep fighting, or just learn to live with it. I am wondering if it is simply a design fault with the MacBook Pro, or something to do with the way the USB ports are built. Any ideas on what I should do?

  • MBP 2010 - USB drives ejecting by themselves?

    On my new 2.4 i5, USB hard drives are ejecting randomly by themselves and then giving me an error saying they were removed incorrectly?

    Are these bus powered or self powered (ie with their own power supply) drives, djanthonyw? If they are "bus powered" are you using a "yoke" cable to two USB ports or just a single USB power feed (which is likely to fail to provide enough power in any high power demand situation, with the sort of consequence you mention)?
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  • How do I properly eject my USB drive?

    So I was on my USB drive and stuff and I tried to safely eject it (dragging into the trash, pressing the eject button in Finder).When I think it's safe to pull it out, I pull it out. But then a message appears that I didn't properly eject my flash drive, even though I clearly did. Is this something to worry about or is my Mac just acting up again? My Mac is from 2009 and my usb drive is a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16 GB, btw -3- the suggestion thingy says to write that so i did ....

    First, please use normal fonts and sizes here. Your selection is hard to read.
    Always eject a device in one of these ways:
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    Select the device's Desktop icon and drag it to the Trash.
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    Select the device then press COMMAND-E.
    Select the device and press the Eject button on the keyboard.
    Do not remove the device until its Desktop icon has disappeared. Don't be in a hurry.

  • USB drive keep showing up after eject

    I just bought a USB drive today and everything works perfectly except - after 3-4 seconds after I ejected the disk, it will keep showing up in Finder automatically and it keeps doing that everytime I ejected it. I disconnect the usb drive between the gap (after eject and its auto re-mount). So, anybody know what's the problem here? I verify and repair the usb disk (as well as my internal hard drive) in disk utility, but still the problem keeps showing up.
    Macbook   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 120GB HD, 1GB SDRAM

    Adnan,
    two suggestions:
    1) Try it using a different Mac
    2) Create a new user account and check things there
    Mihalis.

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