USB Key Not Ejecting Properly

Hi,
My U3 USB key/drive is not ejecting properly from my Mac Pro. (OS X 10.4.9, 5GB RAM, 3 HD's).
When I click "Eject" the icon on the desk top disappears, and the light on the drive goes into 'sleep' mode (indicating it is still connected to the computer, but not in use).
And sure enough, when I pull the key out, I get a message saying that it has not been ejected properly.
I have read of others having problems with this, and have seen advice such as trying to close down the drive from disk utility, and shutting down the computer and rebooting. The former does not work for me, but the latter does.
Does anyone have any other ideas?
Thanks,

Nothing comes to mind?
Are you opening files stored on the drive, or running applications stored on the drive?
Maybe it's like the message you get sometimes that says "files in use", but you're not getting the message.
 Cheers, Tom

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USB HDD not ejected properly...no longer recognized by Airport Extreme

I'm hoping someone can help. I'm quite desperate as all of my DVDs are on this drive.
I have a 2 TB WD USB harddrive that I connect to my airport extreme to use as my iTunes storage. Up until 2 days ago there have never been any issues. I was messing around, cleaning up around the router and hard drive and the USB cable was pulled out of the harddrive. Now when I plug the USB cable back into the drive, it is not recognized in the Airport Utility. I installed an older version of Airport Utility and it shows the volume, but I cannot do anything with it. It is also not recognized in finder. If I plug the drive directly into my MBP, it mounts fine and is totally accessible. What could have meesed up with the drive? I have another 1TB drive that I tried and this is recognizable in Airport Utility and finder along with a USB stick I have laying around. It is only the drive that has all my stuff on that is no longer usable.
If anyone has any suggestions I would be very greatful.
For what it's worth, I've tried everything I can find on here and the web short of reformatting the entire drive. I can't do this as I'll lose all my "stuff".
Thanks in advance.
Marc

This is a user to user discussion area. So it is unpredictable as to when someone with a suggestion will respond to your post. An hour in the middle of a work day isn't a long time.
Since the card is recognized, there isn't anything wrong with that side of the card. If the card isn't receiving a signal, either the RF side of the card has failed, the antenna wire isn't connected properly, or the antenna in the PowerBook has failed.

OSX Mountain Lion "Disk not ejected properly" USB-Finder not responding

Hello,
I just upgraded to OSX Mountain Lion late 2008 macbook pro. Whenever i plug in a USB, it detects it fine. But then when i copy anything to it, it starts but then give the error message "Disk was not ejected properly". After that, my finder hangs and i have to force quit it. And then it doesnt launch unless I do a restart of my computer by pressing and holding the power key because normal restart doesnt work. Happen to anyone? any solution? Thanks!

Connect the USB device then right or control click the USB device icon on the Desktop, then click Eject.
Then re connect the device and try copying files.

USB and SD card both ejected when ejecting only one, message shows one disc not ejected properly

I have a late 2012 iMac running OSX Mavericks. I had a USB memory stick (32gb Sandisk USB3.0) and a Sandisk 32gb Extreme SD mounted at the same time. When I ejected the USB stick both disappeared from finder and a notification showed saying that the SD card was not ejected properly. I'm sure this issue present prior to Mavericks - can anyone shed any light on the cause and what to do to prevent data corruption? Many thanks.

EDIT:
The machine went to the Genius Bar. The Genius replicated the issue, and recommended a left-side IO board replacement. That procedure was performed, and at first appeared to address the issue. SD cards inserted in the store ejected and re-mounted successfully.
The issue has re-emerged, however, so it was clearly not a hardware (only) problem. When I mount the SD card named "Small Test" in the machine after a restart, the machine sees the card and shows the following messages in Console:
18.1.15 17:55:39.000 kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Small Test on device disk4s1
18.1.15 17:55:39.702 mds[34]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7fbe16032a00 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:/Volumes/Small Test/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V1 occlude:0 /Volumes/Small Test
That indicated to me that Spotlight was indexing the SD card. I added the card to Spotlight's privacy settings, and the next time I mounted it I got this message in Console:
18.1.15 17:55:52.000 kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Small Test on device disk4s1
18.1.15 17:58:30.000 kernel[0]: hfs: unmount initiated on Small Test on device disk4s1
So that's good. That's what is supposed to happen.
But after a period of time (a short period) after the SD card ejected, when put back into the slot it did not mount. Same behavior as before. This indicates to me that it's NOT a Spotlight problem but rather something else, something that is time-dependent. But I don't know what process that is. Time Machine, perhaps? I added the SD card to Time Machine exclusions as well, but to no avail. Plus, I'd have to do this for EACH SD card I insert, which seems ridiculous.
Clearly something is going on between the OS, the SD hardware, and the SD card. But I'm flummoxed as to what it is.

When use the my usb it says disk not ejected properly

when use the my usb it says disk not ejected properly?

that just means you didnt take out the usb properly, always before you take out a usb, right click it and press reject. the usb icon should go away from your desktop, now its ok to take out your USB.

USB connection for Android phone "disk was not ejected Properly"

My Macbook Pro OS 10.6 has begun to display "disk was not ejected properly" when I connect my Motorola Photon android phone with USB cable to sync (drop and drag). Now I might be able to connect. Or lately I have the phone icon flash on the laptop screen like it is connecting only to get the error message "the disk was not ejected properly". Sometimes I am in the middle of drop and drag and it happens. Can anyone help?

I would make sure to keep the phone from sleeping and keep it awake for one.
It may be that the iTunes services get in the way too.
I use Samsung Note (tablet and phone) but Windows 8 (better support than 7) on Mac Pro. Which is what this forum is, not notebook but that doesn't seem to matter (half a dozen or more a day think it is)
MacBook Pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro
https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os?view=discussions
http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro
Also mine work better on USB3, though you may not have that if you are running 10.6, in fact you may not have the latest iTunes either (10.7.1 I think currently) which may also want to look at - may require Lioin 10.7.5.
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes

I unplugged a USB data device without ejecting it properly via 'Finder'. Now whenever I plug in the device I received an error message stating that the 'disk was not ejected properly

Now when I plug in the device I receive an error message stating that the disk was not ejected properly & that next time I connect the 'disk', MAC OS X will attempt to repair any damage to the information on the disk.
It has not repaired.
The data I am trying to import is photos & even when I change to a different SD card I receive the same message.
I am a recent convert from Windows and am new to the MAC way of things.

You can repair the SD card using Disk Utility.
I suggest you copy the photos from your SD card, if you haven't done so already, before using Disk Utility to repair your SD card.

"disk not ejected properly" but is still mounted on desktop?

Hi,
I get a "The disk was not ejected properly" message, yet if I go to the Finder's desktop the drive is still mounted and accessible and read/write works fine.
I've witnessed it happen once while viewing the desktop. The drive disappears momentarily for about 1.5 - 2 seconds, then shows up again. So It DOES eject, but it instantly re-mounts, and I mean in under 2 seconds and I've neder experienced a drive intentioanlly unmount/remount this fast in my life. It does happen more often when waking from sleep, but not only in that instance.
Been having this bug since OS X Lion and on to the current version of Marveicks. I am posting this under Mavericks because it's not hardware specific to anything other than USB and LaCie. I am experiencing it on multiple machines, different models, with different external LaCie drives of differing types, with different USB cables. This does not only happen when waking from sleep (as most threads seem to indicate), it sometimes happens for no reason.
The common factors:
All the external drives are LaCie drives (though vastly different models).
Both affected Macs are 2012+ models with Thunderbolt interphases and USB 3 ports (am using USB ports for USB drives, no Thunderbolt adaptors).
I could suspect LaCie, but since it's new since Lion... well you get the picture. Something leads me to suspect a bug in OS X USB protocol, possibly on software, maybe even in firmware. Might be linked to energy saving. I have "sleep drives when possible" enabled, and though it might help to turn that off (I haven't tested yet) I just don't feel I should need to, I want unused drives to spin down and save energy.

Hello there The Heftster,
It sounds like your external drives are periodically disconnecting on their own from the computer causing the prompt saying that the drive was not ejected properly. I would start by resetting the PRAM on your computer with this article:
OS X Mavericks: Reset your computer’s PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/ph14222
Shut down your Mac.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Option, Command (⌘), P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on your Mac.
Immediately press and hold the Option-Command-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.Continue holding the keys down until your Mac restarts, and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
Resetting PRAM may change some system settings and preferences. Use System Preferences to restore your settings.
As well as the SMC on your computer:
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964
Shut down the computer.
Unplug the computer's power cord.
Wait fifteen seconds.
Attach the computer's power cord.
Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Take care,
Sterling

Disc Not Ejected Properly keeps popping up every 5 mins or so

How do I stop this from happening all the time???

Hi Eric,
Your a legend!!!! This seen to have fixed the problem. The only thing is do I have to leave the "config file" on the desktop?
Robster50Jan 25, 2014 12:05 AM Re: Disk not ejected properly
Re: Disk not ejected properlyin response to iPhabio | This solved my question
Hi All
I am not sure if the fix I am about to relay will work for everyone here BUT it has certainly worked for me!
I have a new MBPr which I migrated from my old MBPr and immeadiatly started to get the problems described in this forum.
I have investigaed most of the solutions suggested here and elsewhere without any success, I did install Jettison but while this masked the problem it actually stopped most of my backups working!
So I called Apple support and pushed it very hard until I had a Teir 2 person on the line and she was incredibly helpful, supportive and instisted she woudl ge the problem fixed and she delivered.
She pinned the problem down to the migration from the older machine/prefs corruption.
I will try and record here exactly what we did.
Instructions
1. Pull out your ethernet cable and disable WiFi and any other network connectivity you have.
2. Open Finder, go to your computer and then select you Macintosh HD (or whatever you have renamed it).
3. Go to Macintosh HD - Library - Preferences
4. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and you ewill see a folder called SystemConfiguration
5. Pull this folder onto the desktop.
6. Go to System Preferences - Sharing and change the name of your computer, even just a litlle bit.
7. Reboot
8. Re-enable Wifi and Ethernet
9. If you have installed Jettison, remove it and remove it from your start up items.
You shoudl be good to go.
My machine was constantly ejecting my USB drive, even if left for onnly 10-15 minutes, since doing this I have not had one single ejection and I am into 48 plus hours of run time.
If you like what Jettison does but don't want to eject the disks everytime your computer sleeps and it will!, then try UnDock from the Mac App store.
Very similar functionality BUT it is a manual process.
In my case if I am going to be going out I will simply use the key combo I hae seletced Ctrl-Alt-Command plus U and all my external devices undock.
I really hope this helps one or more you you guys.
Robin

Ever since upgrading to Lion I keep getting the error message "disk was not ejected properly."

Ever since upgrading to Lion on my iMac G5 Intel Core 2 Duo, I keep getting the error message "disk was not ejected properly." I have repaired permissions and reformatted my external LaCie 2TB USB hard disk, but the error continues. I use this disk for my Time Machine backups. This always seems to happen when the computer wakes from sleep, but not consistently. The computer was asleep overnight and backed up as soon as it awakend this morning. Two hours later I get the improper ejection message. I have used the same external disk with Snow Leopard (all versions), but never had this error message or problem. This disk has been in use without any problems since February, 2011. Upgrading to Lion is when this problem began. This is the below message (but from online image from Snow Leopard, but Lion message is essentially the same).

I had a similar issue. Mine was with a Seagate GoFlex drive. The solution was to install GoFlex for Mac 1.1.2 which included a 64-bit driver to disable the drives built in sleep timer:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=goflex-mac-install-softw are&vgnextoid=77002aaf8cc5d210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD
I document how I discovered this in my blog post:
http://www.innerexception.com/2011/10/tale-of-computing-misery-how-to-fix.html

My iMac is disconnecting all my media hard drives and giving "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message since updating to OSX 10.9

Ever since I updated to OSX version 10.9 on my iMac, it is disconnecting all of my media hard drives and giving me the message: "Disk Not Ejected Properly." My hard drives are connected to my iMac through a Nitro Professional 8-port Firewire 800 hub/repeater, and a Firewire 800 cable from the Nitro hub connects to the back of my iMac. This configuration has been working fine for over a year. Suddenly, and immediately after performing the update about a week ago, the drives won't stay connected for more than a few seconds before the iMac disconnects from my drives. I've tried restarting and reconnecting many times and the same thing keeps happening.
I have a new MacBook Pro (one month old) that I've been using temporarily to work with my photos and video on these drives as the drives are able to stay connected to this computer—I put a Thunderbolt adapter onto the Firewire 800 cable to connect to it. Luckily I had not yet updated it to the new operating system and I am afraid to do that. I've had the persistent message that Updates are available for my computer on my MacBook but I will not perform any updates for fear that I will lose access to my media drives. I am a professional photographer, so it's pretty disasterous if I can't access my drives. Please advise me what to do to keep my hard discs connected to my iMac and what to do to keep this from happening with my MacBook.
Thanks in advance for your knowledge and assistance!

Hello Roma2001,
Thank you for the details of the issue you are experiencing with your FireWire hub.
I recommend following the steps in the section titled "Top troubleshooting tips" in the following article:
USB and FireWire Quick Assist
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1151
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.

The disk was not ejected properly

I have 3 Seagate 1.5TB external USB drives. Two of which I am using with a MacbookPro 17" first gen. Latest snow leopard. The third one I am tethering to a Dell XPS server. The one attached to the Dell works fine.
On the MBP17 Every now and again (randomly) the disk disappears from finder and I get this dialog:
|
| The disk was not ejected properly. If
| possible, always eject a disk before
| unplugging it or turning it off.
|
| To eject a disk, select it in the finder and choose File
| > Eject. The next time you connect the disk, Mac OS
| X will attempt to repair any damage to the
| information on the disk.
|
| ( OK )
I've replaced one of the drives through Seagate RMA and the same thing happens with the returned/refurbished drive. So, I really don't think there's anything wrong with the drives.
I've tried at least 3 different USB cables of different lengths from different vendors. One is only 1.5feet & gold plated. Still, random ejects. Using the disk attached to an old dual G5 I have... I don't have this problem.
Anyway, I am thus quite leery of using it for anything other than backups. I've never had the problem while actually copying files, only when I'm doing something else (like typing an email, or browsing the net).
I recall having read some older Macbook Pro 17" owners having similar issues with >= 1TB drives on these forums [http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2151621&start=120&tstart=0] but no solutions.
If someone can point me to a solution I would be very grateful.
Message was edited by: phpguru

@Gizmolab - Thanks for that reply. It seems like a decent theory. I found Seagate Diagnostics for Mac. It says it's only for drives that have a FireWire800 port. The ones I am using have USB only. I installed it anyway. When I run diagnostics it says no drives found so I cannot diagnose them. I'll see how it goes though, maybe it updated the driver.
To add some more info to this thread... I figured I'd try Disk Utility to manage the drives manually. I've tried dismounting them and also just dragging the volumes to the trash when they are not in use, and using Disk Utility to mount them again when they are needed.
What I've found is that in addition to the drives automagically ejecting themselves (and remounting again automatically about 20 to 30 seconds later)... is that a dismounted drive will automagically mount, too. Okay fine, I'll dismount them and unplug the USB cables, and reattach them when I need them.
Disk Utility reports that there appears to be no problems with the disk... thankfully. While typing this reply, I heard the disk go to sleep and about 3 minutes later it just ejected itself dang it. So Seagate Diagnostics appears to be only for Firewire800 drives.

Has any one come up with a solution to the "the disk was not ejected properly" when using time machine with an iMac and seagate back up drive?

I recently bought an iMac and love it.
Only proplem I have is I keep getting an error message "the disk was not ejected properly"
Everything is backing up fine on my Seagate 2TB external USB drive.
Each time there is access on the seagate and it stops in between needing to back up again I get this message.
Can anyone help?

The drive is malfunctioning.
If the drive has more than one interface (USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, eSATA), try one of the other interfaces.
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.
If the drive is bus-powered, but has an AC adapter, connect the adapter.
If the drive doesn't work under any of the above conditions, it has to be replaced. 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.

Disk not ejected properly notification after upgrade

Hi,
I have a 500GB Western Digital external drive configured for Time Machine. I recently upgraded to Mavericks, now when my computer goes to sleep I get the dreaded "Disk was not ejected properly" message. With Mountain Lion I have experienced this issue when my macbook pro goes to sleep when running a vm in Parallels, but never at any other time.
It wouldn't really be a big deal, but I am connected to a thunderbolt display and when I wake the computer up, I have to unplug the thunderbolt cable and plug it back it in to get my thunderbolt display to turn back on. This is a real pain!
Not sure if this is a bug or configuration issue. Perhaps I might need a third party app like Jettison.
Please help.

Thanks for the info. I reset the SMC and my mbp starting acting very funky. I started experiencing some odd behaviour with my internet connection, so I shutdown my mbp and left it off for at least a minute. When I rebooted I was able to connect wirelessly and hit the sites I could not before.
All good; however, I noticed that my external drive was showing as a usb device and not Time Machine drive. I selected the external drive from the Time Machine prefrences and now all seems to be working fine.
I think this was the actual issue I was experiencing after upgrading. I don't think the SMC reset was necessary in this case, but I gave it a shot because I had noticed the symptom of fans running frequently when there is minimal load and proper ventilation.
Thanks.

External HDD: Shows not ejected properly when the drive is still present

Hi,
I have a Seagate 500 GB external HD, the big one with power adapter. I connect to my MBP with a USB cable. Recently, every now and then, I am seeing the message "Your external disk was not ejected properly. Always make sure you eject blah blah..." even when the disk is firmly planted onto the Mac. I can see the disk in my desktop and finder. But keep getting this message nevertheless.
Another observation is - If I have Picasa open, Picasa fails to load the pictures in the external HDD when this happens. Pictures that has been earlier added to Picasa library, that is, which should ideally show up when the HDD is connected.
Any ideas?

Try a different USB cable. If that doesn't work, go to Seagate's web site and open a tech support request with them. If a new USB cable doesn't help, there is probably a problem with that disk drive such as outdated firmware.

USB Key Not Ejecting Properly

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