Mountain lion ejects external hard disks

After upgrading to Mountainlion (March 5, 2013), my LaCie external hard disk (500 GB, used for TimeMachine) was spontaneously and improperly ejected, presumably by the OS.
(1) The disk had worked without problems under OS 10.7.
(2) The disk mounts properly on an older Mac (OS 10.3.2).
(3) The disk would not mount on a newer Mac also running OS 10.8.2.
I am currently reparing the disk using Disk Utility on the old Mac, but I hesitate to attempt mounting it again on my iMac (June 2008) running OS 10.8.3. Can anyone shed light on this problem? I know I am not the only one with this difficulty, so is Apple doing something about it?

It is very probably dying (I just had to replace a Lacie disk 250GB form 2008).
This disk has originally been formatted on the 10.3 and then never again?
You can format it again on 10.8, but you will loose the TM backup, so if you do that you have to make a new TM on another disk.
I would no longer trust this disk, and buy another (5 years is not bad at all). Take all you want to preserve off the Lacie on the old machine and copy it to the ML machine.

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Looking to move data from OSX 9 to Mountain Lion using external hard drive?

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Thanks. I'd like to get rid of this OSX 9 after retrieving a few files. If I wanted to erase it's hard drive before I do so, would powering off then on again and immediately start tapping the F10 button do the trick as it does with a PC?

Problem ejecting external hard disk

i've an 80gb external hard disk that i use frequently with my macbook, and i haven't had any problems with it until a few days ago.
everytime i finish using my hard disk and want to turn it off, i'm unable to eject it thru finder or just by ctrl+click on it and selecting eject. if i do by that method, the whole computer just freezes and i'll need to hold on to the power button to shut it down.
i've even reinstalled my system TWICE to try to solve that problem until recently, i discovered a way to workaround it, which is to fire up disk utility and select the disk to unmount it.
is there anyway i could do to solve my problem here? it's quite a hassle to launch disk utility all the time for such a menial task. :/
P.S my external hdd has 2 partitions.

yes i have. on both partitions, and disk utility found no errors in both of them at all.
i've even formatted one of the partitions again.

Lion on external hard disk?

Can I install Lion on an external hard disk and run main MBP computer from there, leaving that main computer with Snow Leopard?

Yes. However, better is to put a bootable backup/clone of your SL installation onto the ext HD and install Lion on top of it. That way all of your users, settings, and documents will be there.

Installing Mountain Lion on BLANK hard disk that says I need more space

I'm trying to reinstall Mountain Lion to a blank hard disk. It stops during install and says I need 4.2G more space and suggests I free some up. It's a blank hard disk, all I have access to is Disk Utility. How do I free up space?

Did you format the blank disk and add a partition?
Can you provide a screen shot of Disk Utility?

Mountain Lion damaged my hard disk

I tried installing ML in my iMac running Snow Leopard, and I also got the hard disk damage problem.
It seems some people that were running Lion have been able to run de Disk Utility booting from the Recover Partition, which is not featured in Snow Leopard.
I also saw people suggesting to use Disk Warrior or Tech Tool Pro to recover the disk, but haven't heard of any positive feedback and I am not paying to solve a problem I did not create.
This seems like a major bug in Mountain Lion so far being ignored by Apple. I have heard of people taking their computers to technical support and the people at Apple suggesting to replace the hard disk, which is a pretty convenient solution, since they are not the ones losing their files.
If the installation of ML not even started, how come I cannot switch back to my status quo and boot normally in my Snow Leopard? I am really disappointed about this situation and I would like to hear from people who were able to recover their computers from Snow Leopard, especially people at Apple that seem to be silent about this problem so far.

hpr3, I understand your point that maybe my disk might already have a prior issue, but it doesn't seem a coincidence to me that many others have had the same problem upgrading to ML and suddently had their disks crashed.
It's not a coincidence, but neither is it the fault of ML. A drive that is slightly corrupt can, when a major system upgrade writes tens of thousands of files, become very badly damaged, corrupting the system and potentially user data. It happens to some people with every system upgrade and update.
I did not run the disk utility before the upgrade. I would expect the ML installation to do it before permanently compromising my disk.
That's the way it's supposed to work. Many people with problems end up being told that they can't install because the disk can't be repaired. However, some problems manage to persist. No disk repair tool is perfect.
Utlimately, although you say you're not paying to fix a problem you didn't create, you did create the problem by not having backups. Backups are a responsibility every computer user has, regardless of OS. If you had backups, the fix would be simple and cheap.... erase the hard drive and restore from backup. Since you don't, you will end up spending some time and possibly money resolving the problems, and you may not see some of your data again. If the problem is fixable, DiskWarrior can likely fix it. (It doesn't try to repair the directory structures, it simply rebuilds them from scratch.)
It would be wise to try to back up what you can before doing that, but that will be tricky with a damaged drive. You could try connecting to another Mac using Firewire target mode, and copy what you can that way... but you're likely to have some errors interrupt the process. You could also try using Disk Utility's Restore pane to copy the disk to another hard drive, but again, the errors are likely to complicate things. You could also try copying vital files with the Terminal while in recovery mode, if you know how to use Unix commands.

How much space is occupied by OSX Mountain Lion on the hard disk

Hi guys,
can someone tell me please how much space is occupied by Mountain Lion on hd? I whould like to buy a new Hybrid hd but it has only 8 Gb of nand flah memory.
I fear that operating system will be divided on both hd partitions (ssd and serial ata 5400 rpm.)... Someone have some experience with hybrid storage?
Thanks a lot

Then you don't want that model. You want the Momentus XT500 which is a 7200 RPM drive. For example, Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ...

Hi i had made internet recovery for my mac, and now trying to instal the osx on external hard disk

Hi , i had my mac showing the question mark box. So i made internet recovery, and now i'm trying to download the osx lion on external hard disk as it shows , but its failing again, i dont know why

mamdouh elchami,
which model MacBook Pro do you have? If I understand you correctly, you have already made a successful OS X Internet recovery to your internal disk, and now you would like to install Lion on an external disk. Was it Lion that you had successfully downloaded and installed to your internal disk?

Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine

Recently upgraded Mac 24" to Lion (clean install) and now no external hard disks work with Time Machine.
installed new internal disk first with fresh 10.7.3 Lion software. Also upgrade ram to 4GB. Work great, super fast.
BUT.... my WD 1TB firewire400 external disks no longer work with the Lion enabled machine now.
FURTHER... I read somewhere that WD is problematic with Lion but Seagate was not... so I went and bought a new 3TB Seagate GoFlex.
When it didnt work properly either, I patiently searched and found a software/firward upgrade and applied.
I re-partitioned disk to extened/journaled standard, etc.
Then assigned the particition to Time Machine. Drive turned the blue/grey color, so I thought it would work.
But, it has now been in "preparing" mode in Time Machine for HOURS....
What is up Apple? So dissappointed. Ive read these type of problems are notorious with Lion and I wish I never upgraded.
Are you trying to make issues with External disks, to drive people to iCloud? That trick ont work in me. I will not reward bad behaviour Apple.
Please provide a fix... I wasted hours/days screwing around with this, instead of using the Mac for what its intended!

Solved by Pondini, on another thread I opened...
Answer:
Sounds like either:
A directory problem on your internal HD. Verify your internal HD, and Repair any other volumes being backed-up per #A5 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.
Something in OSX may be damaged. You've tried the "combo," so a fresh copy of OSX (that won't disturb anything else) would be worth a try (and you don't need a tech for that). See Installing the ''combo'' update and/or Reinstalling OSX.

I have a 1TB WD external hard disk, which suddenly cannot be detected in my system. When i connect the hardisk to the macbook, the disk appears and immediately disconnects with the message "Disk not properly ejected". Any advice ?

I have a 1TB WD external hard disk, which suddenly cannot be detected in my system. When i connect the hardisk to the macbook, the disk appears and immediately disconnects with the message "Disk not properly ejected". Any advice ?

verify on another Mac if the same
WD is having issues with mavericks as you can see on the WD forum, did you install any WD software (never do that) when you connected the drive for the first time?
possible issue is a dead SATA bridge card or the new WD firmware w/ Mavericks.
SATA card issue
Your dead external hard drive is likely fine! Great hope for your 'faulty' external HD
http://community.wd.com/t5/External-Drives-for-Mac/bd-p/passport_mac
verify on another Mac if all possible

Cannot install Mountain Lion on my hard disc, as I keep getting the message" 'This disk is used for Time Machine backups'. Which it isn't - I don't use Time Machine

Cannot install Mountain Lion on my hard disc, as I keep getting the message" 'This disk is used for Time Machine backups'. Which it isn't - I don't use Time Machine

Check to see if you have a folder named "Backups.backupdb" at the root level of your hard disk. That can cause this error message.

Upgraded to 10.10.3, the external hard disk keep working and spinning after I ejected successfully, and the HHD keep lights up, feel unsafe to unplug it

I tried on two macbook air, same situation.
This never happen on 10.10.2 or previous version. (The HDD light will off and it will stop running after I ejected before.)
I feel unsafe to unplug the external hard disk when its still light up and running.
I am using Macbook book air 2012 and 2013 with seagate backup plus....
Anyone have same problem? how to fix it?
or its ok to unplug the HDD while the HDD light is still on and running?
MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.3)

I have a G-Tech external hard drive that continues to spin after I have unmounted it and if I disconnect it while it is spinning it makes a very nasty sounding clunk noise. In my case it started doing this after I enabled FileVault a couple of years ago. I have found that if I unmount it and then wait 6 minutes it will stop spinning. It is inconvenient but I only use it once a week and the clunk sound is scary enough that I put up with the wait.

I have macbook pro 13.3 inch ..mac os lion 10.7.5 i want to tranfer data from macbook to external hard disk without loosing data which in already in extrnl drive

i want to take back up of my macbook . so i have external hard disk around 1 tb and already have 230 used ...when i transfer manually with out time machine ....because i want to tranfer into windows .....so how to change ntfs into fat32 without loosing data in external harddisk ?

You don't have to change NTFS to FAT.
Just install Paragon NTFS and you'll be able to transfer your data to your external HDD even if it is NTFS.

The iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk

My iMac doesn't recognize my external hard disk. The iMac also keeps a DVD inside. It doen't throw it out despite "eject".

Sounds like you might need to make that call. In the meantime here are a few of things you could try that may help:
To eject the disk try a restart holding down the mouse button - hopefully it'll eject.
If you are running either Mountain Lion (10.8) or Lion (10.7) try booting into the Recovery HD:
Restart holding down Command+r. At the screen with 4 choices choose Disk Utility and then select Macintosh HD and click on repair disk. If it fixes anything click on repair disk again until you get a clean pass. Restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If you are running an earlier OS you would normally carry out this process by putting the grey restore disk that came with your Mac in the Disk drive and restarting holding down the C key. Choose your language and at the next screen from the menu bar select Utilities>Disk Utility and then follow the above instructions (I realise you won't be able to do this if you have a disk stuck in the optical disk drive).
Try an SMC and PRAM reset: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3603
Try a Safe Boot: Restart holding down the shift key until you see a grey progress bar. Once it's booted restart as normal from the Apple menu.
If none of this helps, I guess you need to make that call. Good luck.

I'm not crying. Is there a way to install Mountain Lion on a bootable disk on latest iMac cuz mine shipped without an OS?

I could cry right now. After decades of being an Apple fan, something is happening for the worse and issues with every Apple product I own 2 iphones, 2 iMacs, 15" Macbook Pro, and iPad Mini (no issues here, just slow connecting to App Store and can never seem to download updates) has left me disenchanted. I do have a question about Mountain Lion but just airing out grievances.
Ok, to the point. I have the new 27" iMac that was just released. Was delivered and opened the box, turned it on, and there was a flashing folder icon. No OS, wonderful. I live in Brooklyn and not trying to lug a 27" computer onto the train nor should I have to pay for a cab to resolve this. Anyway, I tried to go into Recovery but it started doing an Internet Recovery with a download time of 9 hours. Um, no thanks. So I downloaded the latest version of Mountain Lion from the App store on my old iMac and made a boot disk onto an external via Apples instructions. Plugged it into new iMac lemon, go into recovery mode, see the bootable drive, click on it to reinstall and it gives me a crossed out circle icon and shuts down.
What am I doing wrong? I have pretty decent broadband and did start the internet recovery process now until I find a better solution online. After 5 hours, Internet recovery finished and clicked on Reinstall Mountain Lion to which it's asking me to download the OS again and with a 13 hour download time!!!! What's going on here? What was the purpose of internet recovery taking 5 hours only to download it again at another 13 hours???
Question is, is there something I should be doing differently? Is there a way to install Mountain Lion from a bootable disk? This is mind blowingly the dumbest thing I've encountered with Apple. Got a problem with your OS? No problem, just download a 4.4GB file every incident.
Thank you.

You can't grab a installer from another Mac and expect it to run. The newer Macs have newer hardware which requires special drivers. If the version that boots the iMac is a special build, it won't work any other way than Internet Recovery.
If it was me, I'd take it right back. You have no idea if the OS is just corrupted, the hard drive is dead, or what. I wouldn't take my chances with it.

Mountain lion ejects external hard disks

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