# Getting Rid Of Disk Not Ejected Properly Message



## nealt (Jan 27, 2015)

I have a number of internal disks with different versions of the OS on it. I also have two external disk drives. So when I restart from say a Maverick disk to a Yosemite disk without shutting down any external hard disks I get the alert "Disk not ejected properly" for the two external disk drives. If I close these messages they will reappear later.  I know if I  shut down the externals then reboot then turn on the externals I will not get the message. But I go back and forth between my Maverick Disk and my Yosemite disk (Internal disks) frequently during the day.  I do not get these messages. So how can I avoid these messages?

I posted this on the Apple forum with no response.


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## DeltaMac (Jan 27, 2015)

Easy
Change the startup disk, then shut down (not restart). 
That process will assure that your Mac does a full hardware initialization - which a simple restart (without a shutdown) may not do.
Goes without saying that you need to give your Mac that time to shutdown, as forcing it to shut off (or restart) can contribute to the problem.

(tip - check both of your externals with disk utility, maybe they are not really working properly


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## nealt (Jan 27, 2015)

How do you do a shutdown from the Startup Disk Dialog box? Your procedure requires a lot of time. You must wait for the shutdown to complete then must manually power and reboot. By choosing restart from the Startup Disk dialog box you can walk away from the computer and the computer will be booted up to the new disk when you return.


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## DeltaMac (Jan 27, 2015)

Except - your present procedure is giving you questions (and there may or may not be an actual problem. That's why I suggested testing both externals)

The shutdown shouldn't really take a lot of extra time - but it does take one extra step - booting back up. I only suggested that because it can help if the problem is a slow close out of one (or both) externals, and the shutdown is really a work-around. If you don't want to try to prevent the error message, then that's up to you...

Just curious - Can you pin down the difficulty to just one of the drives?

Also, are you booting back and forth because of some issue that you may have with Yosemite?
The new Yosemite update has helped ME with one USB external that sometimes doesn't mount right away, and I get a similar message. I think it's a different fault, but still, I just tested with that drive. I can usually get it to repeat a mounting problem, but since updating to 10.10.2, I haven't seen that. Might be too soon to tell - but I though I could mention that. I also boot between 10.8, 10.9,  and 10.10.

Shutdown from the Startup Disk pane is simple. Change the startup disk.
Press Control-Eject, then press enter to accept Shut Down. That shut down box will also accept pressing R for Restart, or S to sleep (if you want THAT shortcut, too)


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## nealt (Jan 28, 2015)

Yosemite 10 is still flakey for me so I am still evaluating it on this extra internal drive. I have a 5.1 Mac Pro with 4 internal drives and two external drives used for backup..
So Maverick is the drive I use regularly. These drives appear to be ok by disk utility. This problem also appears when the Maverick disk is selected.OneExternal is Foirewire 800 and one is eSATA.


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## nealt (Feb 3, 2015)

Shutting down then restarting did not fix the problem.


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## DeltaMac (Feb 3, 2015)

Good (small steps, eh?)

Your posts have been a little unclear about which external is giving the problem.
Have you tried leaving just one external connected, as a test?
Are the drives both self-powered, or bus powered?


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## nealt (Feb 3, 2015)

DeltaMac said:


> Good (small steps, eh?)
> 
> Your posts have been a little unclear about which external is giving the problem.
> Have you tried leaving just one external connected, as a test?
> Are the drives both self-powered, or bus powered?


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## nealt (Feb 3, 2015)

Both of my external hard disks.


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## DeltaMac (Feb 3, 2015)

You already mentioned both, and I suppose that means both are connected at the same time.
Have you tried each? (one at a time)
As both are using different bus connections, it doesn't seem likely that a hardware problem could cause BOTH devices to drop off line. More likely just one of those devices....


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## nealt (Feb 3, 2015)

Both have their own power supplies. It turns out what I am seeing is two messages for the two partitions on the eSATA drive. The Firewire 800 drive does not appear to have the problem. So is there a fix for this?


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## DeltaMac (Feb 3, 2015)

How - exactly - are you connecting to the eSATA drive?
External hub of some kind?
PCIe card with eSATA connection?
Something else?
If PCIe card, have you tried reseating that card?
and, if a card, run the Expansion Slot Utility (in the /System/CoreServices folder), which (possibly) will suggest a better slot to use for that card. It's something to try, anyway, just to see what it reports.


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## nealt (Feb 4, 2015)

The drive is connected with a PCIe card. 

It is seated fine.
Expansion slot utility gives the following message: Expansion Slot Utility is not intended to run on this system.
I am running 10.9.5. Since the drive runs fine otherwise i do not think it is a seating or slot problem.


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## DeltaMac (Feb 4, 2015)

Yet - your drive is either dropping off (not unmounting properly) - or a reboot doesn't seem to mount the drive properly.
One of those situations is triggering your "disk not ejected properly" message.
SO - could be the PCIe card (some minor hardware incompatibility with your system), or something is not right about the card itself, or software drivers that OS X is using, or the interface on the external enclosure, or the drive electronics that's part of the hard drive itself.

So - what to do next?
Try the card in a different slot anyway. Move it two slots over.
(why move 2 slots, you may ask? you have two 16 lane slots, and two 4 lane slots, possible that some cards will work more reliably in different slot configuration.)
Do you have any other cards, in addition to your graphics card?


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## nealt (Feb 6, 2015)

This is my only add on card.


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## DeltaMac (Feb 6, 2015)

Just checking for other possible factors...

If the mount problem occurs in both Yosemite and Mavericks, then it could really be a hardware issue with the card (or the drive/enclosure)
Have you checked with the card manufacturer? Their site/support might have information about issues with Yosemite.

Does it make any difference when you put the card in a different slot?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Feb 6, 2015)

What exact add-on card is it (brand and model number)?  Did you install any drivers for it when you first installed it?  Perhaps it has some kind of incompatibility with certain versions of OS X, or needs updated drivers.  Does the manufacturer's website outline any issues with OS X?


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## nealt (Feb 6, 2015)

Its a NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Controller Card. There are no drivers required. Their customer support says there are no known issues with any version of OS X.


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## DeltaMac (Feb 6, 2015)

At the risk of repeating myself - 
Does it make any difference when you seat the card in a different slot?


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## nealt (Feb 26, 2015)

DeltaMac said:


> At the risk of repeating myself -
> Does it make any difference when you seat the card in a different slot?


No it does not make a difference.


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## Atomic.Fusion (Feb 28, 2015)

I've read through the thread but don't remember or didn't see where and when the message is showing.  Does the message appear when the computer starts restarting (as in exiting OS X)?  When you are using Finder and eject the disks, then pull out the SATA cord(s) immediately after the disk icons disappear from Finder, do you also get a "unsafe ejection" message?

I would try to single out whether the problem originates from the computer or from the drives.  Using a different drive with the same port, does the issue happen?

Perhaps the eSATA bus needs more time to eject the drives than RESTART is giving them.  Maybe you could use an Automator script that ejects the drives then pauses for XX seconds before restarting the system, giving the eSATA bus more time to eject the drives?


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## nealt (Feb 28, 2015)

I do not have another eSATA external drive. The problem does not occur with my eSATA internal drives. Problem does not appear to happen with 10.6.8 or 10.8.5. (I have lots of partitions on my internal drives.) NewerTec now owned by OWC does not have a clue.


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## nealt (Feb 28, 2015)

I have tried ejecting the disk before restarting and tried unmounting the disk before restarting to no effect.


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## DeltaMac (Mar 1, 2015)

nealt said:


> I do not have another eSATA external drive. The problem does not occur with my eSATA internal drives. Problem does not appear to happen with 10.6.8 or 10.8.5. (I have lots of partitions on my internal drives.) NewerTec now owned by OWC does not have a clue.


Looks like you can get this to work better without more assistance from NewerTech, or OWC.
Do each step. Continue to the next step if the first doesn't change anything.
Step 1: Try a different cable to the eSATA drive.
Step 2: Reseat, then replace the PCIe card.
Step 3: Replace the external eSATA drive.


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## nealt (Mar 1, 2015)

I have tried step 2 to no effect. The drive is a OWC drive so I would have to go back to them. Getting another eSATA cable seems to be difficult in Rochester NY. No one carries them.


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## nealt (Mar 1, 2015)

One thing I noticed is that the messages appear anytime I wake the computer up from sleep.


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## Atomic.Fusion (Mar 1, 2015)

"One thing I noticed is that the messages appear anytime I wake the computer up from sleep."
==

Which would tell me that the system is not giving the drives enough time to before it starts sleeping, and thus is telling you that the drives were not ejected properly.

*Since you've verified that this does not happen with other versions of OS X, I would conclude that it isn't a hardware issue.*

If you don't want to manually eject the drives before restarting, then perhaps you can make an automator script that does it, pauses for a certain amount of time, and then restarts the system all in one execution.  For that, you need to determine whether the eSATA connections need more time before restarting or if OS X just isn't properly letting go of the drives prior to restarting no matter how long you give it to eject the drives.  If it isn't properly letting go of the drives, then I'm afraid there's nothing left you can do about that issue.  This is why I suggested that you eject the drives in Finder then pull the cable from the computer that the drives are connected with, to determine how long (through trial and error) you'll have to wait before the drives are fully ejected properly.


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## nealt (Mar 2, 2015)

Manually ejecting disk before restart with a delay did not help.


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## DeltaMac (Mar 2, 2015)

Have you tried excluding your eSata drive from Spotlight?
(Add that drive to the Spotlight/Privacy tab)


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## nealt (Mar 2, 2015)

They always been excluded.


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