Disk not ejected properly

[arogge]

What has to be done if I want to eliminate the "This disk wasn't ejected properly" error message and any potential problems due to unauthorized delayed writes or caching? I want the disk drives to be immediately swappable once the I/O requests have cleared, bypassing the old-style floppy diskette "eject" procedure and enabling hot-swappable peripherals. Even when the device is intended for hot-swapping, OS X insists that it hasn't been ejected properly. It's like the old nag screen from Microsoft ScanDisk, blaming the user for not shutting down properly. It doesn't need to shut down! It's finished immediately following the I/O operation. The sad part is that Windows doesn't have the problem. It sometimes will complain if I yank the plug for a hard disk out of the data port suddenly while passive I/O requests are occurring, but the complaint is easily dismissed by ignoring the popup message, and it's fault-tolerant so no data is lost. OS X makes a big issue of it, as if I just took a screwdriver and forced a floppy diskette out of the drive slot while it was being written.

 

[grahamperrin]

What has to be done … want the disk drives to be immediately swappable once the I/O requests have cleared …

If the volume will not unmount without force, then use lsof (with sudo) to list the files that are open. Then consider whether any process has a file open longer than expected.

 

[Marsh99]

I've been having this problem for some time on one of my external USB drives on my 2008 Mac Pro. It died a few weeks ago and I replaced it with another same external enclosure where I can swap drives. The problem continues, so here's what I've done, which while not a fix, points to the problem.

For starters, I'm running 2 identical external enclosures with Seagate drives on 10.8.5 Mountain Lion. They are DataTales with swappable hard drive set-ups. Both being run by a dual channel e-sata card.

Here's what I did:

1. I unplugged the e-data cable and ran the enclosure on FW800, thinking I had a bad channel or cable. Problem still persisted.

2. Swapped e-sata cables from one enclosure to the other. Problem still persisted on same volume, so it's not a bad channel on my 2008 Mac Pro.

3. Swapped hard drives from one enclosure to the other. Problem switched over to the other volume. This indicates that the latest purchased enclosure is involved.

4. Finally, did all the things suggested above, including unchecking "shut-down drives when possible" in energy saver….nothing helped, problem still persist.

Summarization: It's not the hard drives, nor the cables, nor the type of bus I'm running it on, as it's given me the eject warning on USB, FW800 and E-sata. It appears that the OS does not like certain firmware, as one of my DataTales never ejects and the Seagate USB enclosure before it also ejected after sleep mode. When looking at "About This Mac" and checking hardware, the ID is different between the 2 DataTale enclosures. I may take the latest enclosure and go through the firmware update that I did on the other to run 3TB HD's (a dreaded task as it's complicated and must be dome on Windows 7…no Mac FW updater). I think that some FW on certain external enclosures do not play well with something in Apple OS from at least 10.8, 10.9 and the latest Yosemite from what I've read.

Should I find a solution or if the FW updates works, I'll update my post.

Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 FSU237

Quick update:

The hub I am using is Belkin Hi-Speed USB 2.0 FSU237. It's been working great for years. I've had other hubs that haven't withstood the test of time.

I plugged my time machine backup drive which is a Western Digital 1TB USB 2 drive directly into the USB port on the computer (no hub). I got the same error on sleep. It didn't happen every time, but it happened over half the time I tested. I tried several USB cables. The full description that Disk Utilities gives me for this drive is: WD Ext HDD 1021 Media

It seems like I'm going to need to purchase Jettison. Since the problem is occurring even when the drive is plugged in directly, I'm not convinced that purchasing a new USB 3.0 hub would solve the problem. Because I use the drive for manual Time Machine backups it does get written to. Most of the other drives plugged in are used in a more read-only fashion.

 

[twade21146]

I have an external USB powered HDD attached directly to a USB3 port on my 2012 mac mini. I never eject this drive as it is used daily and is where my media is stored. It seems that every time my mac goes to sleep and is woken up I get the above error message. It is really annoying because my mac is used purely as a plex server/player and is controlled almost exclusively with a remote control and I need to dig out the Bluetooth mouse to get rid of the error message.

Anyone have any ideas how I can prevent this from happening?

I used the disk utility to verify a USB thumb drive having the same issue. It seems to be corrected now.

 

[iHeartMacs.com]

Well I see the problem still persists but I'm glad I found this post because I had the same problem and I've found something that works for me. Go to Settings -> Energy Saver : and uncheck "Put hard disks to sleep when possible." Make sure to click on Battery Or Power Adapter and uncheck the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible." for both configurations. I'm on a Macbook Pro Retina with a CalDigit Thunderbolt 2 dock. It has multiple USB Flash and USB external HD's in it and the same problem you were having was driving my crazy until I did that.

 

[azentropy]

I've had this issue for a while on my 2009 Mac Pro with various external drives. Both using internal USB, and off of a USB 3.0 card I installed. Jettison did NOT work for me. It has become worse in 10.11 as not only do multiple messages display for the same drive sometimes they don't go away and when I try to close them now the system freezes for a minute or so.

I've reset SMC many times and have altered the "Put Hard Drive to sleep when possible" in Energy Saver - although I just verified and it is checked now so I'll try turning that off again.

 

[grahamperrin]

@azentropy that sounds like problems with hardware, maybe more than item of hardware, not forgetting cables.

 

[azentropy]

@azentropy that sounds like problems with hardware, maybe more than item of hardware, not forgetting cables.

Maybe... but I've tried multiple drives, cables and ports (built in and off usb 3 card) with the same issue.