unable to eject - disk in use

Did you check to see if any processes are accessing the disk? (e.g. Finder, mdimpiort)

Just log out and log back in, and all should be well. If not, then a restart will almost definitely cure what ails you.

I'm having this same problem with both my FW External and my iPod. Neither will eject from Finder, and both are saying, "Disk in use". Is this a problem people are still having?

reubs said:

I'm having this same problem with both my FW External and my iPod. Neither will eject from Finder, and both are saying, "Disk in use". Is this a problem people are still having?

Click to expand...

It's a very rare problem that's existed for a long time, but very occasionally it happens. As long as the disks aren't new or you just upgraded to leopard or reinstalled the OS or something that might've caused spotlight to reindex them, then it'd be super-rare to see it happening to 2 disks at once. So unless spotlight is busy indexing your drives, then you have a weird problem on your hands.

Sorry to revive this oldie, but I found this thread in a search.

I'm having the same thing whenever I try and disconnect any external media like my Blackberry (with SD card) and a thumb drive, plus an external HD I use with Time Machine. It seems that it only started happening after the OS 10.5.7 update.

No apps running, just Finder. I've repaired permissions, logged out and back in, etc. Any hints as to what's going on?

skwij said:

Sorry to revive this oldie, but I found this thread in a search.

I'm having the same thing whenever I try and disconnect any external media like my Blackberry (with SD card) and a thumb drive, plus an external HD I use with Time Machine. It seems that it only started happening after the OS 10.5.7 update.

No apps running, just Finder. I've repaired permissions, logged out and back in, etc. Any hints as to what's going on?

Click to expand...

I may be having a memory lapse, but I think I fixed this issue by going into Energy Saver preferences and unchecking the option to "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible."

To find out what files are being accessed you can enter the following command into Terminal,
This will create a log file listing all files that are currently in use by the system. It's easiest to open this log file in Console where you can use the search field to filter the listing. Enter in the name of the external drive and that should shorten the list greatly. From there it may provide clues. Often I find Spotlight is to blame.

jive turkey said:

I may be having a memory lapse, but I think I fixed this issue by going into Energy Saver preferences and unchecking the option to "put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible."

Click to expand...

Sorry, but my memory has returned and the above is incorrect. This solved the problem of thumb drives ejecting on their own and giving me that "you better eject next time before you remove a drive!" warning. You are having the opposite issue. I apologize for my first post.

Open up Activity Monitor, pull the menu down to show "all processes", and click the CPU column to sort by CPU usage. Do you see a process called mdworker taking up a constant amount of cpu greater than 10%, or is it just jumping up to like 4% every few seconds and then dropping down to zero again for most of the time? mdworker is spotlight's process (iirc), so if mdworker is taking up a significant and constant amount of processor, then you have a runaway spotlight problem on your hands, which can be easily remedied.

It happens very often but I think it's a system bug, if you have an activity light in the external hard drive you can see if it is really in use or not. I just unplug the cable and press the ok button in the bad boy warning dialog.