OS X won't eject drive (The disk "X" is in use and could not be ejected) Help!

[glitch44]

okay, so i'm new to OS X...

The external drive i have plugged in keeps seeking repeatedly.
I checked: Spotlight isn't indexing it.
OS X won't eject the drive-- I getL "The disk "X" is in use and could not be ejected".

I did this in terminal to see what files are getting accessed:

lsof /dev/disk1s3

COMMAND  PID   USER   FD   TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF   NODE NAME
Finder  1690 imac   13r   DIR   14,5      680  71703 /Volumes/OS X Storage/.Trashes/501

Finder  1690 imac   17r   REG   14,5   301444 158658 /Volumes/OS X Storage/STORAGE (D)/_incoming/12tr102.jpg

waited five minutes, ran it again. same 2 files.
what gives?

how to i get Finder to leave the files alone / eject the disk?

 

[iMeowbot]

First, if you have any Finder windows still open that are displaying folders inside that drive (including the trash), close those windows. If ejecting still fails, ctrl-option-click the Finder's dock icon and pick Relaunch. That should release the open files that are preventing the eject in this case.

If you use fast use switching, make sure that no other sessions are looking at the disk.

 

[glitch44]

First, if you have any Finder windows still open that are displaying folders inside that drive (including the trash), close those windows. If ejecting still fails, ctrl-option-click the Finder's dock icon and pick Relaunch. That should release the open files that are preventing the eject in this case.

If you use fast use switching, make sure that no other sessions are looking at the disk.

No Finder windows open.
Ejecting still failed.
Tried to relaunch Finder-- it opened an applications window and my mouse beachballs whenever i mouse-over it, yet i can still use firefox and post this... ?
external drive still seeking... seeking... seeking...

thanks for your help...

 

[nichos]

There's the emergency eject. Shutdown the computer, turn it on and press and hold the (left) mouse button. The disk should force eject.

 

[glitch44]

There's the emergency eject. Shutdown the computer, turn it on and press and hold the (left) mouse button. The disk should force eject.

I had to do the emergency eject. Anyone know why Finder would get stuck on a file like that? It keep seeking it over and over and over.

 

[tyr2]

I had to do the emergency eject. Anyone know why Finder would get stuck on a file like that? It keep seeking it over and over and over.

Dodgy disk I would have thought. It's probably trying to read the same file over and over. Try giving it a clean?

 

[glitch44]

Dodgy disk I would have thought. It's probably trying to read the same file over and over. Try giving it a clean?

i'm a recent switcher from XP. How do I clean it?
In windows I'd use CHKDSK to check the drive surface for corruption, but I'm not sure what the OS X equivalent is...

 

[tyr2]

i'm a recent switcher from XP. How do I clean it?
In windows I'd use CHKDSK to check the drive surface for corruption, but I'm not sure what the OS X equivalent is...

Aah sorry I thought it was a CD/DVD, cleaning an external hard disk with water is probably not such a good idea!

You can use disk utility to verify it (in Applications/Utilities). Find the disk then click 'Verify Disk'.

 

[Am3822]

It may be a shot in the dark, but did you use frontrow to access files on that disk?

 

[glitch44]

It may be a shot in the dark, but did you use frontrow to access files on that disk?

nope, it's a newly formatted media drive that i copied stuff over from an NTFS drive and manually forced a spotlight index (last week).

i wonder if there's some metadata in that file that Finder / Spotlight didn't like?
or maybe it's a bad drive and i should replace before it crashes.

 

[disconap]

This happens to me from time to time; what I do is shut down the comp and unplug the drive (a firewire WD 250gb) and plug it back in. That usually solves it, though run disc warrior (or at least the OSX disk utility) before and after, and back up important documents to the computer first just in case. Good luck!