Can not un-mount anything

[oursfan]

I tried to search the forums for an answer to this but have not really found any straight forward answers. I am not a computer genius so the simpler explanation the better for me.

I upgraded to Leopard a few weeks ago and really like it. However, just the other day I started having this problem. I can not eject or unmount anything anymore. I can not eject my external hard drive or any other .dmg programs downloaded from the net. They just sit there. I have tried ejected them using the icon next to them in the device panel and I have dragged the icon to the trash. The only thing that works is if I go to disc utility to eject them or simply restart my computer. Does anyone know why this started happening all of the sudden?

 

[Fleetwood Mac]

Its hard to say. Try making a new account, mounting something and then un-mounting it. Tell us what happens.

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Just to confirm -- no open windows or apps running associated with those dmg's? Did you update to ensure you're using the latest update package for Leopard?

If Y to both, this is perplexing and I'd like to know the results of "Fleetwood Mac's" suggestion, also.

-jim

 

[Jeremy!]

They won't unmount if they are being used. Perhaps they are being indexed? Or permissions are wrong. Trying doing an info (command I or 'get info' from the finder's file menu) on the volumes to see what the permissions are.

 

[oursfan]

Well, whatever was going wrong has apparently corrected itself because things are back to normal now. I can not really explain what happened or why it is now working, but I can un-mount things again. If the problem comes back I will update the thread. Thanks for all the advice.

 

[compuwar]

Well, whatever was going wrong has apparently corrected itself because things are back to normal now. I can not really explain what happened or why it is now working, but I can un-mount things again. If the problem comes back I will update the thread. Thanks for all the advice.

When you plug in a new drive, Spotlight starts indexing it, and if you don't stop it, then you can't unmount the drive until Spotlight is done indexing. You'll see the pulsing dot up in the right corner.