external drive randomly unmounting [Archive]

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CrunchyPickle

Mar 26, 2008, 12:46 PM

macsrules

Apr 19, 2008, 06:49 PM

I have an OWC Mercury Pro external drive connected by FW800 to my MacBook Pro 10.5.2. It is constantly unmounting itself. It is usable for short periods of time but then inexplicably disappears. Even in the middle of operations. OSX even reports the error that the drive was removed improperly. This is very frustrating, any ideas?

Make sure in your system preferences under energy Saver the sleep options are not kicking on and kicking your external off. I have never heard of that name brand before either. You could try re-formatting the external after backing everything off it. Or if you just bought it, you could ask OWC to exchange because it is not working right.

OWC Larry

Apr 20, 2008, 11:42 PM

I'd recommend firing an e-mail to our tech support:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Service/Tech2.cfm?Man=Other+World+Computing&submitButtonName=Continue...

I am assuming it's either an OWC Mercury Elite Pro or OWC On-The-Go Pro, either way - that unmounting isn't normal.

I could make some guesses.... bad cable or loose connection is one. Could kind of test that with a different FW800 cable or connecting via FW400 to your Fw400 port and see if same occurs there. All our FW800 equipped solutions include both FireWire 800 and FireWire 400 cables.

Even with energy saver spinning down the drive, that shouldn't cause unmounting. When it is unmounting - are you getting the Finder warning about improper dismounting of volume?

Odd things are also sometimes corrected by the simplest things like a permissions repair. Especially if you are not getting the aforementioned warning, could be something glitchy with the OS that a permission repair will fix. Stranger things, believe me.

Best is to fire our tech support an e-mail or give them a call at 800-275-4576 during hours (8AM to 8PM CST M-F).