IMac repeatedly corrupting external drive directories in sleep mode

When putting my iMac into sleep mode or when it goes into sleep mode after a period of inuse I keep getting the "improper eject" message. After waking the iMac I sometimes get the "disc not initialized" message and discover that the directory has been lost. It's happened to 4 different external drives in the space of a month.
The disks are connected via firewire 800. I have recently added a firewire hub but the problem was happening prior to and post this addition. I can't think of any other changes I've made to my set up that may be causing this behaviour. Previously I've had no problems of this nature in the 2 years since I purchased the iMac.
The drives run without this problem when connected to my MacBookPro.
Does anyone have any ideas or suggextions for running any diagnostic tests I coulod run?
Thanks in advance.

I have the same issue on my 2011 MBP. I have three FW800 drives daisy chained together. The first drive in the series disconnects when my computer goes to sleep and I get the error stating the drive wasn't dismounted properly. The other two drives stay connected fine. I don't have to close the lid, it will do this after the computer goes to sleep based on my power saving settings.
The drive that disconnects is a 500GB G-Drive. The second drive is a 1 TB Hitachi drive mounted in a IcyDock. The third drive is a 500GB G-Mini Drive.
I had the same three drives connected to my previous 2007 MBP and never had the issue. The issue started when I purchased my new MBP in July. My software is up to date and I'm use OS X Lion.

Similar Messages

External Drives Won't Sleep

Hi
Since upgrading to Leopard none of my external drives go into sleep mode when not being accessed. They do when connected to other Macs... so that points to the iMac.
Tried resetting the SMC and also 'put hard disk(s) to sleep' is checked in energy saver. Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Many thanks
Colin
PS I use Lacie drives... Quadra D2 and Porsche

I have the exact same problem. I have my energy setting to put my drives to sleep when possible. I also have an external Firewire drive. In Tiger the external drive was sleeping unless I was accessing it. Now with Leopard the drive constantly wakes up. Just now I hit the back button on Safari and the drive woke up. Crazy.
Unfortunately I have no idea what is causing this, but do have the same issue. I see you excluded them from Spotlight. I just tried that and will see what happens. Are you using Firewire or USB for the external drive? I'm going to switch to UBS and see if that makes a difference.
-Dan

How can I copy all the files from my iMac to an external drive so they remain as 'regular accessible files'? I want to clean my dive

How can I copy all the files from my iMac to an external drive so they remain as 'regular accessible files'? I want to clean my dive

You can use a program like Carbon Copy Cloner. It will clone your HD to the external. The format is the same as your internal drive and you can boot from it using Option key at boot time.
http://www.bombich.com/
Regards,
Captfred

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library

I have an iMac and I am running out of disc space. I am considering an external drive to house my iTunes library. If I buy a second drive to operate as a back up will time machine back up the disc on the IMac and the external drive with the iTunes library?

If you have a considerable photograph and/or movie collection you may want to consider off loading those to the EHD too. Here are Apple's article showing how handle iTunes & iPhoto libraries.
iTunes: library on EHD
iPhoto: How to move the Library to EHD
Roger

I recently purchased a new iMac with an external drive. I want to transfer my files from my old iMac to the external drive, but I'm afraid that doing that will compromise the use of the external drive on my new iMac. Comments? Help?

I recently purchased a new iMac with an 1 Terrabyte external drive. I want to transfer my files from my old iMac to the external drive, but I'm afraid that doing that will compromise the use of the external drive on my new iMac. I have not downloaded the external drive's software onto my old Mac because of this concern. May I simply "drag and drop" the contents I want transferred to the external drive, then set up my new Mac with the drive and download there? or is there a better procedure? Comments? Help?

If your intention is to copy a just documents and data (word processing files and music for example) then yes, you can use drag and drop. If you want to transfer data and applications and permissions, it would actually be easiest to connect the drive to your old computer and turn on TimeMachine. Once TM is finished, connect the drive to your new computer and restart it holding the option key to get into Recovery mode. Then you can use the restore from TM option to transfer your data and programs to the new computer.

My IMAC recognises an external drive but won't let me save to it. Message is the there is no space available but there is 500G left.

My IMAC recognise an external drive but won't let me save video or files to it. Error message is that there is not enough space but the drive is 500G.
Only just started happening a week ago. Same with USB drives.
Regards,
Robert

How much is "plenty of storage"? Go to Settings>General>About>Available
The GB size of the download file is the compressed size (like .zip or .dmg). When the file is installed/uncompressed it can be 2-3 times larger.
 Cheers, Tom

Re-formatting iMac's Corrupted Hard drive..Suggestions please

Because of a failed Optimisation I feel I now have to completely wipe, re-format and re-load OSX onto my iMac's internal HD, but never having done this before I want to make sure I don't end up in more of a mess then I am in right now! So I'd appreciate any advice as to the best way to go about this.
My iMac is a late 2009 27" and at present has OSX 10.8.5 loaded, ( loaded but with many miss-functions ). Prior to the problem the iMac was running OSX Lion, what version though I can't remember.I installed 10.8.5 the other day to see if that would fix things, but it hasn't. It was not a "clean install", just regular one from downloaded OSX 10.8.5.
I have run Disk Utility and TechTool Pro' 7 to try to make repairs to address the problems so far to no avail. Main problems are that my most used applications, FCP-7 Studio, Aperture and Photoshop CS5 amongst others, open but then immediately crash. I've reloaded the troubled applications, de-installed them properly with de-installation app's then clean re-installed them, but that's made no difference. They will not mount.
I reckon there must be a fault or corruption on the HD, probably caused during the Optimisation as everything was functioning well before I did that.
So, the only OSX install disks I have are the original disks that came with the iMac, OSX 10.6.2 and a Snow Leopard Upgrade DVD OSX 10.6. I do have the downloaded copy of OSX Mountain Lion that I pulled from the App Store the other day and that copy is now on an external USB / Firewire 800 HD.
As I said I would like to be able to clean off the iMac's internal 2tb drive completely and install a fresh newer OSX. If I first have to load OSX.6.2 then upgrade via the App Store that's fine, but I'd rather just go straight to Mountain Lion if possible. Whatever works best. Getting rid of any corruption on the iMac's HD is the prime motivation.
All my applications and files are backed up to a 2tb LaCie external drive.The iMac has approximately 900 gb's of content onboard and the rest is free / unused space.
I would very much appreciate all the help and suggestions as to how I can safely go about the wipe and re-installation of a fresh OS. I fear doing this without good advice I could very well "brick" the iMac!
Thanks!
PM

I would like to revert to OSX Lion. How can I do this,
Revert to a Previous OS X
would it be possible to install Lion on a separate partition
Yes. Boot into the Recovery Volume again and use Disk Utility to partition the disk.
Is the Installer in your Applications folder? That is where it downloads to. When you start it, you can point it at the new partition and install it there.

Mavericks and unmounting external drive issues upon sleep

Greetings fellow Mavericks users,
I'm hoping someone here can provide some insight as to how to correct the issue I'm experiencing.
Little background:
I was using 10.6.8 for years on a 2008 Mac Pro. I saw no reason to update the OS until I recently acquired a USB 3.0 PCI card and an external drive. In order to use my new hardware, I had no choice but to upgrade to a new version of OSX. Rather than spend money, I took advantage of the free 10.9.2 upgrade available for my machine. The upgrade went surprisingly well with no major hiccups or problems encountered. Yes, a few apps and programs I had running prior to the upgrade were no longer compatible but in the grand scheme of things, my Mac Pro was still alive and kicking along with my most important programs and data. In fact, the upgrade to 10.9.2 fixed a sleep issue I had with 10.6.8 which required the use of an app called PleaseSleep. I don't need that app anymore as the machine goes to sleep and wakes up fine.
Now, on to my dilemma. Prior to the upgrade, I was using an external USB 2.0 drive to house media that I'd share between multiple network devices around the house via SMB (AFP stinks in this regard, hence my refusal to use it); i.e. BoxeeBox. I had run out of space on the USB2 drive hence the need to move everything to my new external USB3 drive that's connected to an internal USB3 PCI controller. The first problem I ran into was that Mavericks now uses Apple's own iteration of Samba (SMB2). After a bit of head scratching and research, I used an application called SMBUp as a replacement to Apple's SMB implementation. That's one problem solved. The next thing that I kept running into was that whenever the machine would sleep then wake up again, I'd get an annoying "Disk was not properly ejected" error message. After more head scratching and research, I've discovered that this appears to be a bug in OSX and how the OS interfaces with 3rd party USB controllers. Fine. I purchased a small app called Jettison which for all intents and purposes unmounts any external drives automatically before allowing the system to sleep. This is where my long-winded (apologies) description above starts to come into play. Now that I have the SMB issue figured out and am using Jettison to eject this USB3 drive when the machine sleeps, I've discovered that I'll still get the "Disk did not properly eject" error message despite Jettison IF there are users connected to the USB3 media drive. Is there a work around this where I can either get Jettison or Mavericks to kill the network connection to the share drive before it's unmounted prior to the machine sleeping?
TL:DR?
Using Jettison with Mavericks, I'm still getting "Disk did not eject properly" when waking the machine from sleep mode. Any way to fix this?
Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions provided.

I had the same problem with Time Machine and solved it by enabling "Enable Power Nap" in Energy Saver:
System Preferences...
Energy Saver
Restore Defaults
Check "Enable Power Nap: While sleeping, your Mac can back up using Time Machine and periodically check for new email, calendar, and other iCloud updates."
2013 21.5 iMac
OSX Mavericks
Seagate 1 TB slim USB 3.0 (power is drawn from USB port), formatted to Mac Journaling File System

External drive no longer sleeping

Just upgraded from Mountain Lion to Mavericks on my Mid 2011 iMac. Prior to the upgrade, whenever the iMac went to sleep, the external drive (G-Technology G-Drive Firewire) went to sleep too. Now, the G-Drive doesn't sleep. Any idea how to fix this?

Send Apple feedback is a joke.
I have spent the last 3 months with their AE's both on the phone and via email. I have ran programs on my iMacs to help them gather information.
The last word I got from them was to switch back to my old OS which I did do on my Mac Mini server. The only reason I got feedback was because I am still under full warranty.
They know, believe me they know about the issue, but you are right about their silence on it.

Problems with External Seagate GoFlex Firewire Drive Disconnecting on Sleep Mode

I am Running a 2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo 24" iMac running Mac OS X 10.7.3. I run time machine to backup to an external Seagate 3TB, FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, FireWire Drive. When the Mac goes into sleep mode, the Seagate drive un-mounts. When the Mac wakes up, I get an error that the drive was not properly disconnected and the drive is no longer mounted. The only way I can get the drive to remount, is to remove power from the drive for several seconds and then reconnect it.
I have seen several people talking about this issue in various forums with many various makes and models of FireWire drives, but I see no answers to this issue from Apple. Does anyone have a resolution to this issue, or are we just stuck with this problem? It is terribly frustrating!!!! The lack of response or interest from Apple is even more frustrating!!!

Wish I had an answer, or even a clue about this one. I have a Western Digital MyBook Studio that I've had for a fair number of years now and finally had to resort to just plugging it it as a USB device. Since it's only used for Time Machine backups and storing things I rarely need, it's not a huge burden, but I'd love to hear from anyone with a suggestion as to how to fix this. I recently upgraded from a 17" late 2006 iMac to a Mid 2011 21.5" iMac and would really like to go back to FireWire if it's not going to be a big-ole-pain in the hind end.

Moving files from iMac to an external drive

I have a 250 gb iMac and a 1 tB external drive (Seagate). My iMac is getting quite full, so I tried moving some files to my external. It told me that I couldn't because these files needed OS X to operate. How can I move files to my external so I can clear up my iMac drive?

Greetings,
Is the drive you are moving files to the drive you use for your Time Machine backup? If so, don't do this. Any files you put on that drive are not backed up by Time Machine (Time Machine cannot backup it's own drive. That would be like performing brain surgery on yourself.) If you are running out of space, get an additional external drive to store them on so that they can still be backed up by Time Machine.
Here are some general ideas on how to free up space: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.6/en/8358.html
The most common items that people tend to have that use up all their space are iTunes (Music/Movies), iPhoto (Pictures), and iMovie (Movies).
You can move all 3 of these to an external hard drive if you like. Again, do not use your Time Machine backup drive for this purpose. That is for making a backup copy, not for holding the originals.
Once you have another drive you can move the afore mentioned large items if they are indeed taking up a large amount of space.
iTunes: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1449
iPhoto: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1229
iMovie: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iMovie/8.0/en/19555.html
Hope that helps.

External drives won't sleep properly

Hi
I have my preferences set to allow drives to sleep when possible.
In Tiger this meant that my external drives slept most of the time. They would awaken only when directly accessed by the Finder or an application.
In Leopard my externals are constantly waking.
I have them excluded from Spotlight. They will start when I access something in the Finder that has nothing to do with the drives. They will also start when I access an app like safari.
Any ideas what is happening?

I have the exact same problem. I have my energy setting to put my drives to sleep when possible. I also have an external Firewire drive. In Tiger the external drive was sleeping unless I was accessing it. Now with Leopard the drive constantly wakes up. Just now I hit the back button on Safari and the drive woke up. Crazy.
Unfortunately I have no idea what is causing this, but do have the same issue. I see you excluded them from Spotlight. I just tried that and will see what happens. Are you using Firewire or USB for the external drive? I'm going to switch to UBS and see if that makes a difference.
-Dan

Why doesn't my iMac see my external drive?

I have an iMac 20" 2.16 Core 2 Duo. The machine is operating fine. That's not the issue. I am trying to plug into it a 1TB Maxtor external drive that I used on my G4. The problem is the external does not show up on my iMac. I have tried using disk utility, but it doesn't see the drive. Here's the kicker. When I do System Profiler, it is seeing that the external drive is there. I have tried it through both the Maxtor's firewire and USB connections. In either connection, the System Profiler sees the drive. My question is how can I access it?

Hello
have a look at seagate support pages"External Hard Drive Troubleshooter for Mac OS" , here
http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=213059&NewLan g=en
Pierre

Corrupt external drive

I came back to my computer last night to find it wouldn't come out of sleep mode.
When I force rebooted it, it hung before getting to the Apple logo, turns out the problem was with my external drive acting as a time machine.
I'm all back up and running, however when I plugged in my drive it said it couldn't initialise it. After several hours of trying to get it to work I decided to give up and wipe it. I wiped it but it failed at the last block.
Now I can't get it to be detected by my Mac at all. Tried plugging it into a Windows PC which recognises it, but fails to mount it due to drive incompatibilities
Any suggestions?

Erase the external disk in the PC. Open Disk Management, right-click the partition of the external disk at the bottom and select Format. You must erase it in exFAT or FAT32

Imac cannot find external drive

My Imac cannot find the external drive I have attached. I have used it many times before, but now it does not recognize that it is attached. I have replaced the usb cable with not luck and changed ports. Still no success. I am backing up to the cloud, and would like to also back up to this hard drive. Is this a setting issue with my Mac or do I have a bad hard drive?

In Preferences set the loaction of the library that should do the trick.
I have about 1TB of content on an external drive and it works sweetly ( drive needs to be turned on before launching iTunes ).

IMac repeatedly corrupting external drive directories in sleep mode

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for