External drive - disk utility won't display long - can't repair

Long time mac user --- this one has me stumped.
I have an external disk that I'm using for time machine. USB3.
Sometimes I'm in a hurry and I don't disconnect it properly. Looks like that's messed up the drive - I get "disk not ejected properly" now. Fine. That happens. Reformat, repair, apply journal, whatever.
But the drive doesn't show up in disk utility or `diskutil list`. Or, it does show up, for almost exactly 10 seconds. Although, now, it seems to show up for only about 2 seconds. Too little time to click on it and try to repair it.
I see the drive pop in, 'disk1', and in diskutil list, then vanishes. In the diskutil GUI, it shows up for less time than that, maybe only a second or two. Then the dreaded "Disk not ejected properly" dialog shows up. Every once in a while, OSX seems to retry and the disk pops up. When it does, it's read enough volume information to see that there is a controller, it's found a disk of the right size, it knows about the old volume, and then it vanishes. again.
Any tips? How do I "nuke from orbit" if disk utility keeps vanishing the disk before I can click on it. Lay in wait and hope a click hits it?
There must be a better way.....

Love the resounding silence here.
The problem was hardware. Even though putting in a different disk to the dock seemed to work, that would detach after about 3 minutes.
Buying a new dock and switching to it solved the problem.
I wish I knew which system log would have helped me trouble shoot this without having to buy another doc, but at least it's not a software problem.

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How to open older version of iPhoto from an external drive. It won't let me open or upgrade to the latest version?

How to open older version of iPhoto from an external drive. It won't let me open or upgrade to the latest version?

With the amount of information you've provided it's impossible to offer a potential solution. We can't see your computer so we need to know the details of your problem and setup, i.e.:
what version of iPhoto are you using?
what system version are you running?
what fixes have you tried?
how is the EHD where the library is located formatted?
did you apply any updates or upgrades just prior to the problem occurring?
are you running a "managed" or "referenced" library?
what type of Mac?
how much free space on your boot drive?
OT

I just restarted my mac then suddenly when it boots,disk utility came and says different option like repair disk, get help, reinstall OSX and I tried to click disk repair but it says that I am um able to repair the disk

i just restarted my mac then suddenly when it boots,disk utility came and says different option like repair disk, get help, reinstall OSX and I tried to click disk repair but it says that I am um able to repair the disk

It sounds like your hard drive either has a software problem that Disk Utility cannot fix or that the HD has failed (mechanically).
Your Mac may have booted either to your recovery partition or to internet recovery in an attempt to repair the drive- I can't tell from your post.
I'll assume that it was the recovery partition.
Try to boot into internet recovery (hold down option command R at restart), and see if you can repair your HD with Disk Utility. You should also repair permissions while you're there.
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Hi...
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Allan... thanks.
When running Disk First Aid repair via Disk Utility when booted from your Tiger install disc, is anything reported as being successfully repaired?
If I recall correctly, yes... the specific volume header.
I typically re-verify when I boot back to my startup drive, and initially get passing verifications... then (only recently) within days (sometimes hours) the header problem is reported again.
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Peter B.
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External drive - disk utility won't display long - can't repair

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