External hard drive reformatting error: 'could not unmount disk'

I've bought a TrekStor DataStation maxi light 2TB external harddrive and I am trying to reformat it so I can use it with my Mac.
Unfortunately when I try to either 'Erase' or create a partition as detailed here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2701878?start=0&tstart=0 I get the 'could not unmount disk' error.
Is anybody able to offer a solution?
Kind regards,
Rhyno

Sounds like something is using (or trying to use) the disk.
Eject it if you can. Then unplug and reconnect, and try again.
If all else fails, you may have to power down, start up from your Snow Leopard Install disc and erase/format it from there. See the yellow box in #6 of Using Disk Utility.

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Disk Utility: "Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk"

Disk Utility: “Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk”
Hi. I’ve been experiencing some mildly squirrelly behaviour with my system (vide infra) so decided to repair the two internal hard drives on my computer. The primary hard drive is a 74.53 GB ST380013AS that came with the system; its S.M.A.R.T. Status is “verified” and Disk Utility repairs permissions just fine. However, the second internal drive (Maxtor 6L250S0, 233.76 GB, lower Bay, Journaled HFS+), despite being verified by S.M.A.R.T. status and apparently running OK, fails to unmount when I ask Disk Utility to repair it- I get the above error message in red. I have repaired this disk with DiskWarrior (v3.03) and all appears to run AOK. Can anyone tell me why I cannot get Disk Utility to run on this secondary (eg, non-startup) disk? I have tried many times and the error is reproducible. Thank you!
G5 1.6GHz PPC, 1 GB RAM, running OS 10.4.6

Thank you for these useful links!
For others who have this issue, I also found very helpful advice given to this question on the MacFixIt forums by MicroMat Tech3 at
http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=tiger&Number=76265 1
He said: "Use the lsof command to find the open files on a volume that does not unmount or eject. Open Terminal, located in /Applications/Utilities. Type: sudo lsof | grep Leave a space after the p in grep, then drag the icon of the problem volume to the Terminal window. The pathname for the volume is pasted in for you; press Return. Then enter your administrative password at the prompt, and press Return."
At this point, one now has a list of the open files/processes on the volume that will not unmount. You can use Activity Monitor to terminate these processes if you wish, and then the volume will unmount as it should.

Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk!!

Im having weird things with my fw lacie 200gb. I come across these weird white cubes which pop up in the search mode in finder. So i tried to repair permissions of the Lacie disc and i get this sign
Verify volume failed with error Could not unmount disk
What is this?
What are those white cubes in the finder?

Hi gizeh12!
Are you able to verify the volume of the disc (not permissions)? It could possibly be some bad/corrupt sectors on the drive. Is it a white box with a dashed line outline? Does the file size show the accurate value in "Get Info" when you click on the file?
Are those files somewhere else as well?

Error: Could not unmount disk

Hi: I am having a problem with an external HD (WD 750 GB Caviar Black) housed in an OWC enclosure and attached to my PowerPC G5 running OS X 10.4.11. The only use the drive has seen is trying to create a clone of my primary HD onto a partition on the external using a highly respected application dedicated to this purpose. For some reason yet uncovered, every cloning attempt has stalled the application and hung up my system. That aside, what is happening now is that I cannot even leave the ext. HD powered on and attached to my G5 as within minutes of booting up, my system slows down and becomes unresponsive. Detaching the ext. HD frees my system up instantly.
The last time I ran Disk Utility on the external, it passed verification and I was even able to run DiskWarrior on it and restore the directories to perfect order. But now, even after booting up from my original Mac install disk, although the external shows up in Disk Utility and I'm able to verify it just once (and it passes), any attempt after that to erase it, repartition it, verify it again, results in the error message: Could not unmount disk. Eventually I get the spinning beach ball and have to detach the drive. The drive does not make any unusual sounds and I have to put my ear to it to hear it at all. At one point, on boot up, the blue light on the enclosure continued to flicker for a very, very long time and the drive refused to mount altogether. But it hasn't done that again. I've read that when a drive won't unmount, it can mean that there are open files on it.
Anyone have any ideas as to whether it sounds like a problem with the enclosure or the drive and any suggestions as to what I might try? I have tried connecting it via eSATA, FireWire and USB (all from the same enclosure) and the results are the same.
Jack

Here's an update. Received the new enclosure. Before I transferred the drive into it, I unplugged the internal cables from the old enclosure that were connected to the drive and then reattached them. Also, I noticed that one of the cable plugs was not perfectly seated on the circuit board, so I pushed that in a bit. Heard a tiny click.
Using the old enclosure, the drive mounted quickly and I was able to Zero Data on it and erase it using Disk Utility. Was not able to Zero Data on it before. Would hang every time.
Thought I would try a different cloning app than the one I had been trying to use and this time the transfer did not stall. The estimated time, however, was about 6 1/2 hours which I thought was way too long to transfer 190GB via FireWire 800. The transfer rate started at 4.5MB/sec and went up to 9.5MB/sec. So I thought I would try the new enclosure and see if that was faster. I stopped the operation, erased the partition and transferred the drive to the new enclosure.
Tried the same cloning app that worked in the old enclosure and this time it stalled shortly after starting to copy files. Erased the drive and tried the original cloning app that had stalled using the old enclosure. It stalled using the new enclosure also. Erased the drive and tried the Restore function in Disk Utility and that went through. Took 4 hours. Attempted to boot up from the backup that Disk Utility created but I got the circle with the diagonal through it and it just hung there, with my fans running at top speed. Finally had to power down manually.
I'm thinking maybe it's the drive that's malfunctioning. It is still under warranty. Even though I'm not able to boot from the backup partition Disk Utility created, I'm wondering why it was able to transfer 190GB of data when the other two, well respected cloning applications stalled.

Error during Tiger install, disk utility (DVD) says could not unmount disk

OK, I'll start at the beginning. I was running 10.3.9 on my iMac G4. I hooked up a new firewire external HD. Transferred my iTunes music over, everything worked fine. Ran software update to make some updates (iTunes, Quicktime, Security Update, maybe another one) that I had been putting off because I had been out of space. That's when the problems began. It said I could not install updates, so I restarted. Then it hung up at Login Window starting. I did a few hard shutdowns (holding down power button) to try again, but was unsuccessful.
Read all the forums. Decided that I should have repaired permissions, etc. before installing the updates. So I started in single-user mode, ran FSCK, all that stuff, following the instructions very closely. Still kept hanging up at Login Window. So I started up from the Panther install disk, repaired permissions (made a bunch of repairs) and checked hard drive (said no repairs necessary). Restarted, still hung up at Login Window starting.
So I did an archive and install. There were errors near the end of the Panther install, and it said it could not finish. But the computer started up OK, and I was able to back up all my personal data onto the external HD.
So I decided to upgrade to Tiger, thinking that would fix everything. During the upgrade, it said there were errors installing files and to try again. Did so, same result. The computer did start up in Tiger, but clearly was not operating at full capacity (slow, some things didn't work).
So I decided to erase and install. Again, said there were errors and to try again. Did so twice, same result. Started up from the Tiger DVD and ran Disk Utility. When I clicked Repair Hard Drive, it said "could not unmount drive."
So now I am stuck. I have a wiped hard drive. Can't repair it, and can't get Tiger to install properly. Help!
(i do have an Apple store in town, but I haven't gone to the Genius Bar. Wasn't sure how that worked.)
iMac G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hmmm. And you're sure that when you select the main
hard drive entry in Disk Utility it shows a SMART
status report that says "Not supported"? That's
really odd because your model isn't too old to have a
drive that doesn't support SMART.
Yep, looking at it right now. I've got the drive that says "38.2 GB ST3408..." selected, and it says "Not Supported."
By any chance would you have another external
Firewire drive on which you could install Tiger? If
you do, then you could try installing Tiger on that
drive. If you can then boot the iMac from the
external drive you could then try cloning the system
from the external drive to the internal drive.
I have the one external HD firewire drive. It has my backed up files on it. Could I still install Tiger on it without erasing those files?
You could do the same thing from another Mac if both
support Firewire. You could boot the iMac into Target Disk Mode while it's connected to
another Mac's Firewire port. You could then clone
from the other Mac to the iMac's hard drive that will
appear on the Desktop of the other Mac.
And I do have another Mac, which I am typing on right now. It's sitting right next to my "sick" iMac. If I recall correctly, it's an iMac DV special edition. It does have a firewire port and I think it has a DVD drive. It's running 9.0 currently.
You can use the Restore option of Disk Utility to do
the cloning. The process is as follows:
1. Open Disk Utility from the Utilities folder.
2. Select the source or startup volume from the left
side list.
3. Click on the Restore tab in the DU main window.
4. Drag the source or startup volume to the Source
entry field.
5. Select the destination or backup volume from the
leftside list and drag it to the Destination entry
field.
6. Check the box to Erase Destination. Skip this
step if you've already formatted the drive.
7. Double-check you got it right, then click on the
Restore button.
So should I use the firewire external HD or the old iMac to do this? (Thanks so, so much for all this help, by the way. I really appreciate it. I love my iMac and want to save it! I have to go cook dinner right now, but I'll come back later to check your answer and try your suggestion.)

Please Help, After Kernel panic restart failed- apple swirl(6 hrs), SafeMode-failed, SUMode-sucess. Could not unmount disk to erase. Repair permissions-multiple fail errors:unable to set permissions on... unable to set owner and group...

Please Help, I deleted an account that was the same name as the administrator but was not the administrator. Also a samsung galaxy s phone was charging through the usb port.
I closed out a program and got a message that the temp file could not be stored/saved.
Then a Kernel panic message occurred and restart was necessary.
The restart resulted in the screen with the apple logo and a continous swirl for 6+hrs,
Attempted Safe Mode start up, unsuccessful,
Single User Mode-sucess.
Ran $ fsck_hfs -rfd /dev/disk0s2 Ran several times repairs made with one which remained. something about a node.
No change in start up attempts
Started with install CD matching current OS 10.6
Ran Disk Utility Repair Permissions resulting in multiple errors:
One line/error
Warning: SUID file /////Ardagent has been modified and will not be repaired
144 lines/errors of this type of series of lines
Group permissions differ on...should be drwxr-xr-x, they are -rw-r--r-- .
permissions differ on...should be drwxr-xr-x, they are -rw-r--r-- .
unable to set owner and group...error 22: Invalid Argument
unable to set permissions on...error 22: Invalid Argument
Ran Repair Disk, result:
Error: Could not unmount disk (in red)
Ran Verify Disk, result:
The volume HD appears to be ok (in green)
Next I attempted to erase the dist to start from scratch since I have data backed up on time machine.
Error message box
Volume Erase failed
Volume Erase failed with error:
Could not unmount disk
I am looking to solve without buying DiskWarrior unless only resort.

So it looks like solved it for now I will update later. What I did was after starting from the install cd for the 10.6 system I ran from terminal ran:
diskutil disablejournaling /dev/disk0s2
diskutil disableownership /dev/disk0s2
diskutil repairPermissions /dev/disk0s2
then i closed terminal and then when to disk utility and chose to repair disk with results all was fine. Then ran repair permissions and got similar results from terminal function next I erased disk and then chose to restore from time machine and it is now restoring! yea!

Could not unmount disk (-10000)

Hello all.
Just a quick one...
Just tried to verify/repair my External LACIE using Disk Utility, and found that I get this error...
Repairing disk for “LACIE HD”
Repair attempted on 1 volume
0 HFS volumes repaired
1 volume could not be repaired
Repairing disk failed with error Could not unmount disk (-10000)
Any ideas why this would happen? I have used Disk Utility before to Verify my External Drive...?! Any help would be much appreciated.
Kind Regards.
Jamesy!

Application Scripting Errors
-10000 Apple event handler failed.
Apple Event Registry Errors
-10000 AppleEvent handler failed.
Click a pic to feel the awesome 30" • Clone your boot drive, read my how to post here

Disk Utility, 'Could not unmount disk'

In what state - if any - does Disk Utility leave a Disk or Volume when I get the 'popup' error, "Could not unmount disk"?
I've had this on a variety of SATA and Firewire 400 disks under Tiger; typically, repeating the process in question (a Repair, Erase or Partition) seems usually to be successful, eg:
Creating Partition Map
Partition failed for disk Maxtor 7L250S0 Could not unmount disk
Partition complete.
(That's from DU's log; to me it's contradictory.)
But it looks as though something is set somewhere as a result of the apparent failure and as though there is a knock-on effect for such cloning s/w as the excellent SuperDuper!
I have ruled out hardware and experienced this 'error' with three different drives from two different manufacturers.
Is some bit or similar set somewhere which marks the drive as unmountable to the OS and third party apps, even though it is always subsequently usable in the Finder?
TIA!
G5 DP 2 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) clean machine; no haxies, perms repaired; lots of space etc!

Turned out to be a corrupt loginwindow.plist preference. Solved

Is my HD Dead? Reformat Disk Utility Error: secure disk erase failed with the error could not open disk.

Hi,
Fed up with seeing the spinning beach ball I decided to reformat my MacBook Pro...
After backing up everything on an external hard drive I put in the OSX install DVD, restarted the machine and held down 'C'.
I followed the install prcedure, clicking next a few times etc...
I then went into Utilities > Disk Utility. I chose 7-Pass to erase the Macintosh HD and set it off erasing.
I checked the process an hour in and message on screen read:
Secure disk erase failed with the error:
could not open disk
The internal hard drive no longer exists in the disk utility so I cant retry erasing it.
The only thing that appears in disk utility is the OSX install DVD.
I can't even shut down the mac as everything under the apple tab is greyed out!
I'm guessing this means my hard drive is broken right?
If anyone has any other ideas of what to try I'd really appreciate that.
How do I turn the machine off?
If my hard drive is gone then should I consider getting an SSD drive?
Any recommendations for such a drive would be great.
Hope you can help!

Did you partition the drive?
Extended Hard Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder. If you need to reformat your startup volume, then you must boot from your OS X Installer Disc. After the installer loads select your language and click on the Continue button. When the menu bar appears select Disk Utility from the Installer menu (Utilities menu for Tiger or Leopard.)
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the drive in DU's status area. If it does not say "Verified" then the drive is failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (only required for Intel Macs) then click on the OK button. Set the number of partitions from the dropdown menu (use 1 partition unless you wish to make more.) Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Partition button and wait until the volume(s) mount on the Desktop.
4. Select the volume you just created (this is the sub-entry under the drive entry) from the left side list. Click on the Erase tab in the DU main window.
5. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, check the button for Zero Data and click on OK to return to the Erase window.
6. Click on the Erase button. The format process can take up to several hours depending upon the drive size.
Steps 4-6 are optional but should be used on a drive that has never been formatted before, if the format type is not Mac OS Extended, if the partition scheme has been changed, or if a different operating system (not OS X) has been installed on the drive.

Disk Utility Error Message for Firewire HD: Could not unmount disk

I have one internal HD with 10.4.2, another with 9.2.2, and an external firewire with 9.2.2. Sometimes the firewire does not show up on my desktop, or when I try to copy files onto it the beachball spins endlessly. When I try to reboot holding down the Option key, the firewire HD does not show up.
I ran TechTools 4.05 (while booted from my Tiger HD) on the firewire HD. Everything checked out.
I tried running Disk Utility on the firewire. The first time this is what I got:
"First aid failed. Invalid key check. Volume check failed. Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit."
I ran Disk Utility again:
"Repairing disk failed with error. Could not unmount disk."
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Your firewire disk is damaged. Try that: restart in safe mode (pressing SHIFT after the chime). Wait for complete boot. Plug the external HDD. Try again with Disk Utilities. Wait the report. My advise is to check its integrity. Try repair. If nothing works, try with DiskWarrior (the best utility).
If DiskWarrior can't do the job, you – definitely have a damaged hard disk.

Didn't eject my external hard drive now it will not reconnect

I just got my MacBook Air, been using a PC up until now. Earlier this morning I plugged in my external hard drive and transfered some music onto my MacBook Air. When I removed my external hard drive I didn't not eject it, now when I plug it in my MacBook does not even see it. I tried different hard drives and I can see them. I even tried using that hard drive on my old PC and it works. How do I get my MacBook to recognize the hard drive again? Still new to the whole MacBook experience.

I did the same and was able to see it in Utilities, but not mount it. I read this article and followed the steps and it fixed the problem http://osxdaily.com/2013/05/13/mount-unmount-drives-from-the-command-line-in-mac -os-x/
Utilities - Terminal
Type: diskutil list to find your drive (mine is disk2s2)
Unmount the drive: diskutil unmount /dev/disk2s2
Mount the drive: diskutil mount /dev/disk2s2
The drive immediately appeared on my desktop allowing full access with no damaged files or corrupt disk.

I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine. It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive. I am not deleting them. Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening? Can I retrieve them?

I'm having some difficulty with Time Machine. It appears to be deleting backups from random dates on my external hard drive. I am not deleting them. Are they hidden and how do I prevent this from happening? Can I retrieve them?

... I didn't know that Time Machine was more a last resort back up instead of main back up.
Don't rely upon Time Machine to the exclusion of all else. I compliment Time Machine with a periodic "clone". TM is much better than nothing, but it's a safety net, not a hammock
Here is my understanding of Time Machine's file deletion algorithm, distilled from Pondini's FAQ, Apple's KB articles, and my own observations.
Time Machine deletes ("thins") files from the backup disk as follows:
Hourly backups over 24 hours old, except the first backup of the day
Daily backups over 30 days old, except the first backup of the week
Older backups get deleted when Time Machine requires space and you deleted them from the source disk.
Therefore, assuming TM has been performing at least one backup per day, backup files will remain available:
at least thirty days, if they existed on your Mac for at least a day
until you run out of space, if they existed on your Mac for at least a week
In addition to the above, Time Machine always keeps one complete copy of your source disk so that the entire volume could be restored if necessary. Any files that remain on your source volume will be present on the TM backup, no matter how old they are.
If you are using 250 GB of space on your source disk, its Time Machine backups are likely to require at least twice that much. A good estimate of the minimum required backup volume size would be about three times the size of your source disk - 1.5 TB in your case.
A more thorough explanation would require Pondini since he has plumbed Time Machine's mysteries far more than I have.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427

My MacBook Pro keeps making copies of a document that I am trying to save. I don't want to duplicate the file. I only want to save it on both my hard drive and my external hard drive. I do not want to change its name for every save, which the computer see

My MacBook Pro keeps making copies of a document that I am trying to save. I don't want to duplicate the file. I only want to save it on both my hard drive and my external hard drive. I do not want to change its name for every save, which the computer seems insistent on doing. Help!!

11lizzyp wrote:
can't be saved because the file is read-only.
I did not create the file to be read-only. I created to be able to continue to add to it as I work on it.
More on versions here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4753
local snapshots:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878
Sounds like a permissions problem ie read only.
If running repair permissions from your DiskUtility.app does not sort it,
Someone should jump in here with erudite and concise fix.

I just fix my macbook air because it was kernel panic. They changed the hard drive. I could not back up with Time Machine, because it did not work and I had over Adobe creative suite 5 design premium student. But I finished my studies last year and I'd li

I just fix my macbook air because it was kernel panic. They changed the hard drive. I could not back up with Time Machine, because it did not work and I had over Adobe creative suite 5 design premium student. But I finished my studies last year and I'd like to know how to get the serial number for me to reinstall Adobe creative suite 5 design premium when I am no longer study because I would still like the used? It is not fair if I do anymore because I really need.

You can download Creative Suite 5 here:
Other downloads
To deal with the issue of the serial number and using it again, you'll have to use Web Chat. Here's a link:
Adobe ID, sign in, and account help
See the bottom of the page for a link

Trying to move my iTunes Music and other media from the main drive on my pc to an external hard drive but iTunes is not recognizing the new file location? Ideas?

Trying to move my iTunes Music and other media from the main drive on my pc to an external hard drive but iTunes is not recognizing the new file location? Ideas?

Hello there, Underwriter.
The following Knowledge Base article provides in-depth instructions on how to migrate your content to an external drive:
iTunes: How to move your music to a new computer
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4527
Particularly of note for your situation:
External drive
This option requires more work than Home Sharing, but it creates a backup of your iTunes library on the external drive in addition to moving your content.
Notes before you start:
You can use most iPods as an external drive.
Windows operating systems don't recognize Mac OS-formatted disks (HFS or HFS Plus formats). Because of this, you can't use a Mac-formatted iPod or external drive to move your music to a Windows PC. See iPod: How to determine iPod's hard disk format if you're not sure how your iPod is formatted.
Mac OS X can read Windows-formatted iPods and drives. This means there are many ways to migrate your information from your old Windows-based PC to your new Mac.
Mac OS X: To be sure external drives appear on your desktop, choose Preferences from the Finder menu. Be sure the options for "External disks" and "Hard disks" are enabled.
Part 1: Locating and consolidating the iTunes Media folder
Part 2: Copy iTunes folder from the old computer:
Part 3: Get iTunes ready on your new computer
Part 4: Back up any music that's already on your new computer
Part 5: Copy music to your new computer
Part 6: Add preexisting music that was on the new computer back into the library
Thanks for reaching out to Apple Support Communities.
Cheers,
Pedro.

External hard drive reformatting error: 'could not unmount disk'

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