External Hard drive won't eject.

hi, im new to the boards. just having an issue with my new external hard drive. everytime i use it or i use my cf card reader which is firewire it won't eject either. i've read there are special commands to go in and see what applications are running and i've tried using disk utility to eject the harddrive. nothing seems to work. ive got all my photos from jobs on this harddrive and im worried that by pulling the cord or switching off the device is eventually going to render all my data corrupt or potentially erase it all. if you know step by step instructions to putting commands in to eject these things it would be of great help. im on 10.3.9 ibook g4.
the error is basically telling me the drive is still in use and can nnot eject. not sure why because there are no other apps running?

Well i think i figured out what was causing the issue. i had a jpeg in the trash. i tried to delete it but it states an error message that the jpeg is being used in another application. so i pulled it out of the trash then plugged my external harddrive back in and the tested it to see if it would eject properly and it did! so now i just need to figure out how to delete that jpeg? so the fact that this jpeg is somehow tied up in an application was causing my card reader and external harddrive to not eject properly? strange. thanks for the tip though. appreciate your input.

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My external hard drive won't eject so I can unplug it... and other problems

I bought an external hard drive to use with TM. It is 160 GB Western Digital Travel one. When I initially plugged it in, before I even messed with TM, I partitioned it into 2 drives about 70 GB each, one for TM and one to take stuff off my laptop to create space and store it else where. All was fine and dandy until I turned off my computer and unplugged my external hard drive because I had to take my lap top and didn't want to lug the drive with me. When I plugged it back in and just clicked on TM to see what was available, nothing was there. With it being 2am and me being frustrated I turned it off and am trying to fix it now, except this morning when I plugged in my external hard drive, it can only find my "Extra Stuff" partitioned drive and not my designated "Time Machine Drive" (it doesn't show up on the desktop). I have gone into the disk utility to see if I could repair it, or just erase the TM partition and start over. It currently is trying to "repair" the volume and it says that it is ok, but I didn't know if there were any other suggestions to fix this. It still is not showing up in my desktop.
So far I'm not too impressed with TM. I'm unsure of the best way to disconnect my external hard drive and prevent this from happening again. When I try to simply drag the drive to "eject" to essentially unmount it and then safely unplug it from my USB it asks if I want to "eject all" (meaning the 2 partitioned drives) I click yes and it comes up saying one is still in use. Instead I turn off my computer and unplug it after the computer is off. This is probably a bad idea, but I don't know what else to do. Any suggestions? Do I have to go into the disk utility each time I want to take off my external hard drive and click "unmount"?
Sorry for such a lengthy explanation. Usually programs like this on macs are so simple. TM seems to be less user friendly than their other programs and it has thrown me for a loop.
Message was edited by: larrygal316

I'm having the same issue. Time machine isn't actively running, though just to be sure I turned the service off through the TM utility: no go. Still can't eject. Getting 'resource busy' from umount (sudo umount /dev/disk1s1, that's my external drive name). Umount on the volume says not mounted. Checked activity monitor and couldn't see any time machine processes running, only fsevents, which has to stay running.
I threw the following:
sudo umount -vf /dev/disk1s1
and the drive umounted. -v is verbose, just in case there were any errors thrown I wanted to know, and -f is force umount, which forces the drive to unmount. Check 'man umount' from terminal to see more info on these.
After doing this a couple times (I was doing some testing with some other things to find a faster solution than having to open terminal and umount) it just started umounting correctly. I have no idea why, but it did. So just keep that command in mind, just in case.
Gryyphyn, out.

External Hard Drive won't eject, finder freezes up.

Macbook will not allow my to eject my external hard drive. When I try, the finder bar at the bottom of the screen freezes up and I have to shut down the computer manually.
It's a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB drive that has been journaled to operate on Macs and I haven't had any problems with it until just yesterday.
Not sure what to do here.

Run disk utiltiy on your hard drive to repair it, also repair your permissions.

External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
what version?
Thank you very much!
L

Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

External hard drive won't mount, even after disk repair.

My Toshiba external hard drive won't mount on my MacBook Pro 10.8.5. I can see it in my disk repair, and when I repair, "the partition map appears to be ok." But I can't access the icon to be able to open the hard drive contents on my desktop. Help!

Hello maccynicwhoalwayshasmacs,
Thanks for the question. After reviewing your post, it sounds like trouble with an external HD mounting. I would recommend that you read this article, it may be able to help you resolve or isolate the issue.
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
Have a nice day,
Mario

After installing snow leopard my external hard drive won't show up on screen or backup

Afer installing leopard my external hard drive won't show up on my desk top. It also won't backup my hard drive with time machine. I need help.

Try going to finder preferences, general, make sure show these items on desktop external disks is clicked. You can also go to sidebar (same pane) and click it there so it will show when you open your HD. Time Machine>system preferences>time machine>turn it off click select disk, make sure the correct disk is selected, the turn TM back on. Hope this helps.

External hard drive won't leave

So here's the deal, my external hard drive refuses to eject. I keep getting this message that says the hard drive is being used by a program but that is impossible because I restarted the computer and have no program running except finder and dashboard.
any suggestions?
Thanks
Netta

Just because you don't intentionally run any applications or open any files from your external drive does not mean this is actually the case. It's quite possible that you have a startup item that references an item on your external drive. To check this go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items.
Is this a recent phenomena? If it is then you might want to think back to when this started and see if you can match it to a software installation. Otherwise, it is simple enough to shut down your computer and disconnect your drive when it is off. Not a great solution I know but it's a start.

External hard drive won't shut down after switch from OS10.5 to OS10.4.11

i recently chanded my OS from 10.5 to 10.4.11 (as a programme i want to use is not compatible with leopard), but since i have done this my external hard-drive won't shut down automatically when i shut down my mac. i have to switch it off at the plug instead.
can anyone suggest how i can get it to do this again?
i'm a little concerned that i'm damaging the external drive by turning it off manually all the time..
thanks

Some hard drives shut off with shutdown, some don't. Sometimes hard drives that did shut off with one system will not do the same with a different system. My hard drives which did shut off, prior to 10.5 now stay on.
This is not really a problem as all hard drives spin down after 10- 20 minutes when not in use, whether your computer is on or off. Leaving the drive on is fine, shutting it off manually is fine.
-mj
[email protected]

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.

I just installed OS X Yosemite and now my WD My Book Live external hard drive won't re-connect. My Safari keeps kicking out and giving me error message after error message and my computer is really slow. How do I resolve? Can I uninstall this ?

I just installed OS X Yosemite and now my WD My Book Live external hard drive won't re-connect. My Safari keeps kicking out and giving me error message after error message and my computer is really slow. How do I resolve? Can I uninstall this ? I had to re-connect my iMovie t

USB2.0 PCI cards that use the NEC chipset seem to give the least amount of problems for Mac users.
OWC have a few different ones for sale.
http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity%7c1&Ne=5 000&N=7057&Ntt=USB2**0**cards
Do you also connect the external USB drive to the AC power as well while you use it ?
Sometimes USB external drive problems are resolved simply by plugging them into the mains power and trying again.
Stewie
Message was edited by: stewiesno1

Forgot to eject external hard drive-won't mount, doesn't show

Hello,
I just bought a great running G-Technology (500GB) firewire/usb portable hard drive to replace an older much less stable drive. I wanted to copy the files from one to another when the imac disc just stated spinning forever. Having experienced this before I tried shutting off the old drive, but to no avail. So I panicked and shut everything down. Obviously, I didn't eject the new hard drive. After restarting I was able to get the old drive to appear on the desktop but not the new one. It doesn't show in Disk Utility and I've tried going to Go/Go To Folder/type:/volumes and where the icon of the new drive doesn't show up. I've unplugged it, restarted the computer with and without the new drive plugged in. The new drive light is on and power seems to be going to it when plugged in. What to do? I hope I didn't ruin the drive. It's less than a week old. Thanks for any help! Kris

If you are trying yo use the drive's USB connectivity, "portable" could be the key word. Some drives that must get their power from the computer's USB port ("bus-powered drives") may not get enough power under some circumstances. Their counterpart is the desktop or "self-powered" external drive that comes with its own power brick.
There are workabouts for your existing drive if it lacks its own power supply:
1) Try a different USB port. Not all USB ports provide the same level of power. Ports on the keyboard should be avoided--they can seldom power even a thumb drive
2) Get a self-powered USB hub. It adds to the power feed for the drive and usually fixes the issue
3) Get a USB "Y" cable like this:
1 Meter USB 2.0 A to 5 Pin Mini B Cable - Auxiliary USB "Y" Power Design for external hard drives.
It uses two of the comptuer's ports for extra power.
If you are connecting with FireWire, then the drive is likely faulty.

HELP! External hard drive won't show up in finder!

Last night, I was updating my macbook (from August 2008, still runs on leopard) and it needed to restart. I forgot to eject my LaCie Porsche 1tb external hard drive first and, when it rebooted, I got the error of death (aka "disk was not ejected..."). When connected to the USB port, the drive lights up, I can hear it spinning, but it won't show up in finder and I can't see it in Disk Utility to repair it (after the first error of death, the computer wouldn't even acknowledge that I had the drive plugged in). I've tried plugging it into the different USB ports and even on a different macbook, but no luck in getting the computer to recognize it long enough to use Disk Utility or DiskWarrior. Any tips on how I can get my macbook to read the drive again?

If the external hard drive is not showing up in Disk Utility when connected to two or more different computers, then the problem is with the hard drive, it is broken. Get a new one.

My external hard drive won't show up on my MacBook Pro

So, I'm trying to transfer my music from my PC to my MacBook Pro. I put all my music on an external hard drive, but for some reason when I plug it into my MacBook it won't show up on the desk top. I've already changed my preferences in Finder so that hard drives and disks will show on the desktop, but still nothing. I looked in utilities to see if the hard drive was there, and still nothing. The hard drive is a Toshiba and is fairly new, the light goes on when I plug it into my laptop, so I'm very confused. Can anyone help me with my predicament?

Check that the data cable is securely inserted at both ends.
Try a different cable.
If you're connecting the drive through a hub, connect it directly to a built-in port on the Mac.
If you're connecting it directly, try a different port.
Disconnect all other devices on the bus, or as many as possible.
Test the drive with another Mac. Test another drive with this Mac.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
Boot into Recovery and launch Disk Utility. Is the drive recognized?
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, and if another drive does work with the same Mac, then the drive has failed. You may be able to salvage the mechanism by removing it from the enclosure and installing it in another one, or in a drive dock.

External Hard Drive won't mount - tried Disk Warrior, am backing up as a .dmg...will this work?

Hi Guys,
Hopefully someone can help! Fairly desperate situation here...
I backed up around 700GB of data to an Iomega external hard drive (supplied by the client), using my Macbook Pro...all was fine when I unmounted the drive at the end of the backup.
The client took the drive away and called me to say he mounted the drive in Windows (on a PC), and he was able to work with the files for a time, but now the drive won't mount...
I collected the drive, hooked it up to my Mac Pro, but OSX tells me it can't mount the drive. It shows up in Disk Utility in the sidebar, but not on the desktop...
I tried repairing the disk using Disk Utility and with Disk Warrior, both tell me the disk cannot be repaired...
I am currently making a backup of the drive as a .dmg file, using a program called Disk Drill...it's slow as I expected, but I'm still not sure the .dmg will mount...because surely it's just making a copy of the data exactly, of which some part is not mounting (a mount directory or something???)
Is there any way you guys can think of me somehow taking the data and backing it up onto another disk?
Specialist recovery services seem to think there shouldn't be any problem recovering the data, and of couse, as a costly last resort, that's what I'll have to do, but does anyone know how they may go about doing it? It is something vastly complicated such as a command line thing?
Sorry about the length of this question...just hope someone can help!
Thanks in advance...

You didn't say what format (filesystem type) the disk was.
However, I'd say your analysis is probably correct. Something has corrupted the disk. You can make a disk image copy to the .dmg which will preserve the data, such as it is, but I doubt extremely if it will fix any file system corruption.
Furthermore, if both Disk Utility and Disk Warrior have said the disk is unreadable I'm dubious that anything else will magically repair it and that recovery probably consists of snuffling through the disk block by block.
However if the filesystem is FAT (Windows) there may be other (Windows) utilities that can fix it.
You said you 'backed up the data'. Does that mean you still have the original data on your MBP? Are you trying to recover the client's changes?

External Hard Drive Won't Mount

I've got a new 500GB Toshiba external hard drive, connected to my computer via a USB. The first time I connected it, it showed up just fine, but after ejecting it, and connecting it again, it doesn't show up in Finder. I've gone to Disk Utility, and it does *show up* there; however, I can't verify or repair it (the buttons are all greyed out.) What can I do?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I am having this exact same problem with a WD hard drive, it was improperly dismounted from a Mac and i'm pretty sure the data is ok, but the partition table is corrupted. I tried diskwarrior and some other utilities without any success, although testdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) was able to read the drive and could see the data, i do not have another drive to back it up to. In fact i have this exact same problem with 2 external hard drives, caused by the same thing, is anyone aware of this being a recurring bug in OSX 10.4.11? One would think that Macs being such user friendly machines they would not be so prone to causing major problems on a routine bad dismount... My windows XP machine recognized the drive, and started to mount it but hung partway through the mounting process. I will check back if i find a solution, and please if you could post any breakthroughs you might have it would be appreciated. Good luck!

External Hard drive won't eject.

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