External Hard Drive Unmounts

I posted this in the G5 discussion also.
Here's the situation. I now have a totally rebuild G5. I purchased two new G5s back in 2004. Everything worked fine until about 2 months ago. I started getting kernal panics on every start up on one of them. Long story short, thanks to the protection plan, I got both G5 processers, Graphics Card and Logic board replaced on that one. Now after several minutes of non use, my external hard drives unmount. I have to shut down, turn both drives off, start up the computer, then turn the drives on before I can use them. It happens everytime the computer sits for more that 10 minutes without use. The second G5 works just fine.
Two Duel 2.0 G5s & One Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Not having a lot of luck with that Mac.
Have a red of this White Paper, point 3 in particular:
http://au.wrs.yahoo.com/ylt=A0Je5ajuAzJFFEwBRxUL5gt.;ylu=X3oDMTB2bDEyNXM5BGNvbG8DdwRsA1dTMQRwb3MDNwRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZAM-/SIG=12jje55km/E XP=1160992110/**http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wiebetech.com%2Fpressreleases%2FFireWirePortFai lures.htm
Al

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External Hard Drive unmount itself

Help!
After a I think it was a sucessfull migration to OS X Mountain Lion, My two external hard drives and my card reader unmount itself after 30 second of be connected, every device has the same behavior, any clues to solve this issue?
Thanks in advance

I see. Then, assuming the devices don't try to pull more than 5W of power after they are mounted, I don't think you are experiencing the same issue as me.
Do you have a flash drive (better if USB 2.0)? In general these drives have less complex drivers and if they show the same behavior than it is very likely that you have a problem with your USB ports rather than your OS.
For the OS part, the following comes to mind:
1- Turn off your computer. Plug the charger off. Wait for 10 seconds. Turn it on again and try again.
2- Create another user account, log in with that account and try.
3- Restart the computer. Open Console.app. Try to mount your USB device. After it gets unmounted automatically, copy and paste the last 10 entries in Console.app
4- Reinstall the OS. It might be the case that one of your OS/kernel filels are corrupted. In any case, make sure that you back up your computer before trying this. Normally it should not overwrite any of your files, however just in case.
5- Reinstall the OS after a format. This is clean swipe and the latest choice.
On the hardware side (less likely since you mention that this started happening after the OS update), if you are still under warranty, I would suggest you to take your computer to apple and show them the same problem. They should be able to debug it better than probably anyone. If there is a hardware defect not caused by user, they almost always change your hardware. Again, before taking your laptop to apple make sure that you backed your computer and you have a genius appointment.
Let me know if you are stuck at any point.

Why does my external hard drive unmount?

Hi,
I am having the new problem with my Seagate Free Agent Fire Wire external hard drive. (my other external hard drive is uneffected). The drive is is connected to my 2009 Mac ProQuad Core via FW800 port. It started happening consistnatly about 1 week ago. After the Mac Pro has been asleep, when I wake it I get the "device disconnected improperly" message. If I unplug and replug the FW connection in back of the drive it is recognized again. I have my iTune music on this drive.
I have done permissions repair.
This is the message I got before repairing permissions. Anyone have any ideas on what to do about this issue?

Big Rocco wrote:
Thanks for replying, but the unit is not hot. It has been working without a problem for over a year until this past week. I think there is a different problem. Any idea what the message I posted means?
Thanks
I think it's not hot because the drive is insulated from your touch by the case, but it's cooking inside (see http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-worlds-first-3tb-hdd-seagate-goflex-desk- 3tb-review/7 ) as I learned when I opened up the case. Adding vent holes let it manage full HD backups at full speed, which it couldn't do before. I wonder if the problem has started now because the drive has just been cooking inside for too long.

External Hard Drive Unmounts itself

I have a WD 500Gb external hard drive which I use solely for Time machine. The other day for no reason I got the error message that the drive had not been properly ejected. Since then the Mac does not recognise that the hard drive is attached. I have tried using the Disk Utility to repair permissions and repair disk but this has had no effect. There is some crucial information in Time Machine that I need to recover. Does anyone know how I can get this drive back please.

Hello Jennsy:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
Try this:
Turn your external disk off. Trash a preference file (com.apple.timemachine.plist) and restart. Turn the external disk on. If the external disk is not recognized as a TM disk, go to system preference>time machine>select disk.
Barry
P.S. I do not have a WD disk, but I have read other posts in these forums about people that have had problems with them (FWIW).

External hard drives UNMOUNT when verifying with disk utility

I have two external Lacie hard drives attached to my iMac. One is just for general backup purposes. The other is for Time Machine.
Today when I got home, for some reason the Time Machine drive was not appearing on my desktop. I rebooted the computer, the Time Machine drive reappeared, I ran a back up, everything seemed to be working fine.
To make sure the disk was ok - I ran disk utility. When I selected "verify drive" from disk utility - the disk suddenly UNMOUNTED itself, at the point of cataloging the hard drive, and the verification process stalled. What was originally a 1 minute verification suddenly changed to a 17 minute, then a 33 minute, etc.
I tried booting up in recovery mode (Command -R at startup) and the same thing happened. Are the drives going bad?

Actually - I think when disk utility verifies the disk - disk utility itself actually "unmounts" the disk during the verification process. Probably so the disk cannot be accessed by anything else but disk utility.
I feel sort of silly, because what I thought was "stalling" was really just the disk utility going through its proper verification of the catalog file, multi-linked file, directories, etc.

External Hard Drive Unmounted

Okay, So i have a 1TB external drive that is perfectly functioning i moved my setup around so that im using my TV as my monitor instead of the default screen and now when i plug the external drive in it doesnt automatically mount to my desktop.
Ive opened it in Disk Utilities and its recognised, but Unmounted.
When i try to manually mount it, it says there's something wrong and to try repairing the disk.
When i do that it says "volume repair complete" and "Updating boot support partitions for the volume as required." and is apparently stuck on this status.
I have a lot of valuable information on my hard drive, and i use it as my back up disk.
Hoping the issue is software and not hardware.
Oh and its Via USB, ive tried multipul USB Ports.
Thanks for taking the time to aid me.
-Charlie

Suggest you disconnect the TV and revert back to using the iMac screen. Then see if the external behaves itself. Post back please with what happens.

External Hard Drive Unmounted During Relocate Masters

I was relocating my masters to an external USB drive when the drive spontaneously unmounted. Now I don't really know what the situation is -- only some of the files transferred, obviously. Does Aperture know where all the masters are? When I tried to do another "Relocate Masters" with the hard drive plugged in to re-re-locate them back to my internal drive, it says some are missing but it doesn't specify which or how many or what it thinks is going on. I just don't know how to proceed. I just want things back the way they were.
Maybe I should just start fresh from a Vault backup? Or is there a way to fix this?
Thanks.

To look for the images with missing masters turn on badge overlays in the browser view. All problematic images should show badges with an arrow and a yellow warning triangle like in the screenshot above. To find all of them quickly create a smart album and add a rule "File Status" is "Misisng". This album will contain all of the images with missing masters. To get an overview over the general state of your masters, create several smart albums with all the "File Status" options, i.e. "offline".
For the missing masters set the metadata display to display the filename. Then use Spotlight to search for the file. If Spotlight finds the file, use "Show All in Finder", like in the example below, where I searched for missing Australia images.
If Spotlight cannot find the image, then those may have been mooved outside your home folder.
Open a Terminal window and enter:
open /Volumes
(when your external Volume is connected):
This will open a Finder Window with all volumes connected to your computer. This way you can browse and files and folder at the root level of your drives.
Good Luck
Léonie

Having trouble with USB2.0 external hard drive "unmounting" itself

ibook g4 (early 2005)
I have bought an external 120 gig hd and am trying to use it to store files on. when i transfer files to and from it, the hard drive magically unmounts itself and gives an error device removal. I don't know if the HD needs too much power or what. I have tried to update my system... and no help. what can i do... besides taking the freaking hd out of the external case and installing it in my laptop.
I have never had a problem with usb devices before on this laptop. what gives?

I'm not sure of what is the cause for this is, but because it stays alive while it's in use makes me think there is some sort of hardware sleep mode or something. I don't know enough about USB to be sure though. Maybe a temporary fix would be some sort of script we could launch at startup that reads a very small amount of data from the afflicted drive every 10 seconds or so. I have a little programming knowledge. Maybe I can figure the script out. It's definitely not a true fix, but it might get us by for the meantime.

WD (1TB) external hard drive unmounts and remounts over and over

Never happened before but in the last week or 2 my 1 TB WD external HD keeps unmounting and remounting. Says that the disk wasn't unmounted properly. I then click ok, then it remounts (All 3 partitions, one being time machine). This goes on over and over again! I was able to do a disk utility on the external (before it unmounted) and everything said ok with all 3 partitions. This drive has been working problem free with time machine etc for a year. All my OS Mac updates have been done. Maybe one of them caused this??
Please help.

My problem came back too. Worked for awhile and now back to square one. Tried everything. Curious.... has anyone done a CLEAN INSTALL (not an upgrade) of Yosemite? If so, has this corrected the problem.

External hard drive unmounts in clamshell mode

I just bought a 13" macbook pro and 24" cinema display. With the mbp in clamshell mode the display comes on, but for some reason the two external drives that are plugged into the back of the display unmount with no warning, flashing an error message. Then they won't mount, and if I reset them they unmount within seconds, again flashing the error message. The rf mouse that is also plugged into the back of the display works without a hitch. What gives? Anyone?
Thanks,
jdv

Any more info on this? I also want to get this monitor and have my external HD attached to it.

External hard drive unmounts spontaneously.

I have an external RAID 1 setup using AppleRAID 2.0 connected to my Mac Mini (2010) via USB. If I leave it to transfer large amounts of files overnight, it gives me the "disk was not properly ejected" error after about 80GB have been transferred. I have unchecked the "put hard disks to sleep" in settings and I dont even let my screensaver enable. I find that if I'm using it while it's transferring, it wont unmount. I don't want to be sitting here all day babysitting my computer while it transfers files. I've read a few other posts about people with this same issue but nobody is really sure what it is. Is this a bug with the OS?

Hello Jennsy:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
Try this:
Turn your external disk off. Trash a preference file (com.apple.timemachine.plist) and restart. Turn the external disk on. If the external disk is not recognized as a TM disk, go to system preference>time machine>select disk.
Barry
P.S. I do not have a WD disk, but I have read other posts in these forums about people that have had problems with them (FWIW).

Ntfs external hard drives and fat32 4gb flash drive not able to unmount

Hi everyone,
I have a bit of a headache here. I have two external hard drives, one is 1TB and the other is 500GB, both are NTFS format. I am using them on my macbook pro at this point because my windows 7 desktop appears to have crashed (still looking into the problem, just haven't had the time). I also have a 4GB flash drive that is fat32 format from that same windows desktop but I only use it for loading music on and putting it in the usb port of my stereo in my car. My problem at this point is that I am no longer able to unmount any of these by using disk utility. I was also having problems with both my external drives being read only until I came across Paragon ntfs for mac. That still messes up every now and then somehow and my drives go back to read only until I disable it and reboot, re-enable it and reboot again. Is there something that I am missing? I have been scouring the internet for last day or so trying anything and everthing to be able to get my ability to unmount disks back and nothing seems to work... Can anyone help?

Hi,
Following is the System Requirements from Western digital’s website.
Windows
Available USB port
Windows 2000/XP/Vista®
My Passport Essential 320GB USB 2.0 Hard Drives(WDMEB3200)
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=426
Yes, generally speaking, if an external drive or flash drive can be recognized by Windows XP, it should work in Windows Server 2003. However, there is no guarantee.
If possible, I recommend that you plug the “unrecognized” drive to some other Windows Server 2003 computers to test whether it works. If the issue continues, I suggest that you contact the vendor or the drive for more details.
By the way, what’s the version of Windows Server 2003 you used? Please update it to the latest service pack to check whether they works.
Best Regards,
Vincent Hu

In disk utility, it shows that my external hard drive is somehow unmounted and I can't access it in finder or repair it in Disk Utility. How can I get this working without losing my important data?

In disk utility, it shows that my external hard drive is somehow unmounted and I can't access it in finder or repair it in Disk Utility. How can I get this working without losing my important data?
Thank you!

When you erased the disk did you select Mac OS Extended Journaled as the format option?

Can't unmount my External Hard Drive?

Hi guys,
I've been using my Seagate Portable Media 500GB external hard drive for Time Machine on Mountain Lion.
Last week, Time Machine's backup failed, with the message "Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder."
Using Disk Utility, I verified the disk which asked me to repair it. On trying to repair it, I received the message "Couldn't unmount disk". I received this message also when trying to Erase or Partition the drive and I don't know how to take it further.
The drive is still visible in Finder and I can still access its contents.
I've also tried using a new power cable for the drive and I'm having the same results.
Any advice would be great!
Thanks.

Hi elliswicks,
Please follow this step before atempting Joe Gramm's "boot into recovery" method.
1) Keep your external hard drive plugged in.
2) Restart your computer.
3) Go to Disk Utility and eject the drive.
You should have no problems carrying out Step 3. If this fails, you'll have to rely on Joe Gramm's advanced method.
Hope you (and anybody else) have benefited from this simpler method! Don't forget to like or put "This solved my question" or "This helped me"!
Good luck!
from Galaxy User

External hard drive won't unmount for disk utility.

Im not sure if this is the right topic area but I have a white macbook and my external hard drive won't unmount. I want to erase it via disk utility but it keeps telling me other programs are using it.

Drive Preparation
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your hard drive (this is the entry with the mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Click on the Partition tab in the DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended (Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to GUID (for Intel Macs) or APM (for PPC Macs) then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait until the process has completed.

External Hard Drive Unmounts

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