# Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit with Lacie External Hard Drive



## TuckerdogAVL (Sep 4, 2009)

Hi. Don't know if anyone can help, as this is really a LACIE external problem, more so than a Mac issue, but the lacie external hard drive I have suddenly stopped appearing. I had a power outage the other day...and it actually seemed to be acting a little squirrelly since (I'd have to push the on button a couple times to get it to come on, sometimes I'd hold the button awhile to get it to stop)...then, today, I had a freeze and stupidly disconnected it....it had appeared prior to that....now it doesn't. 

I attempted to see if I could figure out something with disk utility and get the message: 

Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit and Invaid Node structure. 
when attempting to verify or repair the disk "lacie" (the external). 

Will diskwarrior help possibly?


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## djackmac (Sep 5, 2009)

TuckerdogAVL said:


> Will diskwarrior help possibly?



I've seen DW correct many errors that disk utility couldn't correct. Sounds like its something for disk warrior do to the fact that the most common cause of a corrupted directory structure is usually sudden power loses/powering down in the middle of writing to the disk.


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## pjbrubak (Sep 26, 2009)

My LaCie icon suddenly disappeared from my Mac desktop and isn't coming back.  When I power the drive on, it makes a "warming-up" noise but nothing happens.  Then it makes the same noise a few times and then silence.  The blue light comes on and another drive that I daisy chain through it manages to show up on my desktop.
I'm using 10.4.11.  The LaCie drive is not recognized in Disk Utility either.
HELP!


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## ex2bot (Sep 26, 2009)

I would go first to a disk recovery tool such as DiskWarrior, TechTool Deluxe (comes with Applecare) or Pro, etc. I don't even use Disk Utility anymore. I don't trust it to repair because sometimes it can make things worse.

Bot


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## pjbrubak (Sep 27, 2009)

DW didn't recognize my LaCie either. Neither did TechTool.  It's blue light is flashing continuously.  What is the next step?

Philip


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## ex2bot (Sep 27, 2009)

pjbrubak,

Just checking: Have you unplugged the hard drive, waited 30 seconds, and plugged it back in? At the same time, unplug the USB cable from your Mac. Plug it back in after you plug the power back into the drive. See if you can get it to mount (show up on the Desktop).

Next step: Is it still under warranty from LaCie? Call or email them. See if they can help you get it to mount. If you can get it to mount, then run DiskWarrior on it. You can also email Alsoft (makers of DW) and ask them for assistance. Tell them DW doesn't recognize the drive.

I don't know if you mentioned whether the drive is attached to your Mac via Firewire or USB. If you have an external drive that can be connected via Firewire OR USB, try switching from one to the other (only have one cable hooked up at once). For example, if it's connected with a Firewire cable, unplug the Firewire cable and connect it to your Mac with USB. See if that will allow it to mount.


** These next two suggestions would not be the first things I'd try**
 I don't think you're having problems because of a hardware failure, but if your LaCie is not under warranty, you could take the hard drive out of the enclosure (take precautions for static electricity) and put it into another enclosure. This will test to see if the LaCie enclosure hardware failed. It's not too hard to remove the drive. You'll need a screwdriver and notice how the connectors connect before you disconnect them. That way, you'll understand how to hook it up in the other enclosure. This assumes you have another enclosre. 

Failing that, Prosoft Engineering's Data Rescue is highly rated for recovering data off drives whose format is damaged. But then you'd have to shell out mucho $$ to purchase it, and there's no guarantee that it will recover your data.

Does anyone else have a remedy for an external hard drive that fails to mount?

Bot


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Sep 27, 2009)

LaCie's power supplies are notorious for simply "going out" unexpectedly.

I would contact LaCie directly about a replacement power supply, even if the device is out of warranty.


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## TuckerdogAVL (Sep 28, 2009)

I ordered the newest Diskwarrior and it arrived today. I'll make an attempt. BTW, in regards to unplugging, plugging in: I did think of that the other day when I realized it had been unplugged for over two weeks; and thought, "maybe this is all I needed to do..." No luck. And I tried to mount using an old iBOOK that I thought would also run my old diskwarrior (before shelling out the $50)...but, no luck either because I'd upgraded the OSX and Diskwarrior wasn't happy about that....so, I've got the newest version and will run on the new MacBookPro....and hopefully the Lacie will show up again. 

What happens is that it appears in the disk utility, but not on the hard drive...and it sounds like it is warming up....everything appears to work after the first "click" but attempting to run the disk utility on it gives me the message. And it did show up just before the power outage.....

So, maybe diskwarrior will help. Will let you know. 
Thanks for the input.


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## pjbrubak (Sep 28, 2009)

I've got an IS guy at work helping me remove the card from the housing and recover the data...can you just buy housing for firewires?  If LaCie is such an unreliable brand, can anyone recommend a better one?  Thanks to x2bot and ElDiabloConCaca (ay yay yay!)


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## ex2bot (Sep 28, 2009)

Pjbrubak, you can buy FireWire enclosures.

Which external hard drive brands to recommend? I have personally had a couple Western Digital MyBooks. Two units is obviously not a big enough sample to determine reliability. But they've been reliable for me. One is USB, the other is triple-interface (FireWire 400, USB, eSata - I use FireWire 400). I have used both for Time Machine hourly backups for months on end. 

The SimpleTech SimpleDrive (1TB) I just bought, on the other hand, seems to be flaky. It gets disconnected incorrectly when I put my MacBook Pro to sleep, bringing up the warning in OS X. And sometimes it won't mount on the first try. Tech support's solution for the sleep issue was to un-check "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" in System Preferences>Energy Saver. Huh.

Bot


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

Sorry it's been so long in checking back. My apologies. To update my dilemma, the DiskWarrior worked well. I got a lot of "red ink" messages but I was able to preview the data on the external drive. So, I copied it over to my hard drive and then simply reformatted the drive. So far so good. However, I'm a little nervous trusting it as it happened again. 

You know, with a MAC, when you get that notice to always remember to eject the drive first, then disconnect/unplug? And if you don't you get that "device removed incorrectly" message? 

Well, they mean it apparently. What has happened is that I will forget that the LACIE is connected, and if I shut the system down (and I think this also happens in sleep mode, but not sure if it happens every time), and reboot, the external drive doesn't show up. And I get the clicking.  I have to run DiskWarrior,  then copy the files again....So, I've got this 250gb Lacie external drive that I'm using as a "test back up" right now...to see if it is stable enough to trust. If I had disposable income right now, I'd just go to OfficeMax and pick up a 500gb for $80. And, I have to remember NOT to keep it attached in shut down mode.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 20, 2009)

TuckerdogAVL said:


> What has happened is that I will forget that the LACIE is connected, and if I shut the system down (and I think this also happens in sleep mode, but not sure if it happens every time), and reboot, the external drive doesn't show up. And I get the clicking.  I have to run DiskWarrior,  then copy the files again....


First thing: shutting down and/or restarting (via the Apple Menu) "cleanly" unmounts drives.  You do not need to manually eject any external drives before doing either of those, as the system does it for you.  There is absolutely no danger in shutting down and/or restarting while external drives are connected as far as unmounting goes.  As long as these procedures are done properly (i.e., NOT just pulling the power cord or holding the power button until the computer hard-shuts-down), your disk drives are in no danger of corruption or damage.

The only danger arises when you power off or disconnect the drive while the system is running.  In order to do this safely, you must manually eject the drive (simply drag the icon to the trash, or highlight and press command-e).  Once the disk icon disappears, it's safe to disconnect and/or power off.  If you do not "cleanly" eject the drive first, you risk directory damage and/or file corruption.

The second part of your quote above leads me to believe that ejecting the drive isn't your problem.  As long as you've done it safely, you're safe.  If you've ever done it "un-safely," any data errors can be fixed typically by running Disk Utility's "Repair Disk"... but you describe a "clicking" after turning on the computer from a powered-off state.  Hard drives, if they are failing in a certain way, will produce an audible "click" as either the read/write head crashes magnificently into the platters, or the actuator arm has become stuck and the motor is trying to move the arm.  Either of these conditions indicate a failing drive that should be replaced -- there is no "fix" without completely disassembling and reassembling the drive (which requires a clean room -- not your mother's "clean room," but industrial-grade, plastic suit, air filter-style clean room).

I would have the drive looked at and/or replaced.


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

The only danger arises when you power off or disconnect the drive while the system is running. In order to do this safely, you must manually eject the drive (simply drag the icon to the trash, or highlight and press command-e). Once the disk icon disappears, it's safe to disconnect and/or power off. If you do not "cleanly" eject the drive first, you risk directory damage and/or file corruption.

Thanks,this is what I'm talking about: any time I leave a camera connected, or an external or a flash drive and I forget to drag to the trash, I get a "you're data may be damaged because you didn't remove the device properly" message, especially when I reboot. And often, I forget to do this. I've found that if I forget to do this and the LACIE is still firewired, then it goes squirrelly on me.

but you describe a "clicking" after turning on the computer from a powered-off state. Hard drives, if they are failing in a certain way, will produce an audible "click" as either the read/write head crashes magnificently into the platters, or the actuator arm has become stuck and the motor is trying to move the arm. Either of these conditions indicate a failing drive that should be replaced -
this is what happens with the LACIE. And once I run Diskwarrior and go thru everything again there is no subtle clicking - it's more like the "thinking" sound you often hear - and all is well....unless I forget to drag it to the trash to disconnect it.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 20, 2009)

It sounds like your computer is improperly shutting down and/or restarting then.  If you use the Apple Menu to restart and/or shut down, then your drives and devices should cleanly unmount automatically.  If they are not, this indicates some problem with the shutdown/reboot sequence.

Try logging in as a new user and see if this occurs under the new user account.

A better option would be to boot from an alternate source, say, OS X installed on a second partition or external drive and see if it still occurs under a fresh installation.  If it does not, I would suspect something is awry with your current OS X installation.


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

ElDiabloConCaca said:


> It sounds like your computer is improperly shutting down and/or restarting then.  If you use the Apple Menu to restart and/or shut down, then your drives and devices should cleanly unmount automatically.  If they are not, this indicates some problem with the shutdown/reboot sequence.
> 
> Try logging in as a new user and see if this occurs under the new user account.
> 
> A better option would be to boot from an alternate source, say, OS X installed on a second partition or external drive and see if it still occurs under a fresh installation.  If it does not, I would suspect something is awry with your current OS X installation.



Guess I'm not following you because this has always been the case with all four MACs I have owned since 2001.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 20, 2009)

Then perhaps the enclosures are to blame -- have you used the same enclosures with all those Macs?

If your Macs have always complained that a disk was ejected improperly when you perform a proper shutdown and/or restart, then something was wrong with all four Macs, I'm afraid -- the first thing I'd suspect is the enclosures you used with those systems.

The BSD subsystem of Mac OS X always cleanly ejects/unmounts any mounted volumes before shutting down and/or restarting.  None of my Macs have ever complained about improper removal of disks upon proper shutdown/restart, all the way back to the OS 8 days.


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

we are missing something in translation here. If you are saying that if I forget to drag the external or flashdrive or camera to the trash first, then disconnect falls under the category of a proper shutdown then yes there has been something wrong with all four MACs.


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## pjbrubak (Oct 20, 2009)

I transferred my external hard drive into a new enclosure and now it is recognized on my desktop.  Thanks for the advice guys!


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

Help me out here; What is an enclosure? Thanks.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 20, 2009)

I think we are having a communication problem.

Here is what I meant:

If your _computer_ is shut down or restarted from the Apple Menu (Apple Menu -> Shut Down... or Apple Menu -> Restart...), then you need not eject your external drives manually by dragging them to the trash.  They will unmount automatically and safely as your computer shuts down or restarts.  There is no danger of corruption or damage to an _external drive_ by properly shutting down or restarting the _computer_ without first ejecting the drives.

What I mean by "properly" is using the Apple Menu (or keyboard shortcuts) to shut down or restart the computer.  You should never receive a message that you improperly disconnected a drive if you perform a "proper" shutdown or restart.  If you do receive an error message to that effect if you properly shut down or restart, then there is something wrong with something, somewhere, concerning your computer and/or drives connected to the computer.

An example of an _im_proper shutdown would be yanking the power cord out from the back of the computer, or holding down the power button on the computer until the computer shuts off.  In this scenario, yes, data corruption can happen.  You will receive an error message that states that the drive was improperly disconnected from the system.

An example of an _im_proper unmount procedure would be to yank the USB or FireWire cord out of the computer without first dragging the external drive's icon to the trash and waiting for it to disappear from the desktop and/or Finder window sidebar.  The act of the drive disappearing from the list of drives after dragging it to the trash tells the user that it is safe to power off and/or disconnect the drive from the computer.  Some people don't realize there's a required pause between dragging the icon to the trash and powering off the drive -- you can't do them in quick succession.  The proper procedure is:

1) Drag external disk icon to trash
2) Wait for disk icon to disappear from the Desktop and/or Finder sidebar
3) Power off or disconnect the external disk

This procedure only needs to be done if you intend on disconnecting the drive from the computer while still using the computer or keeping the computer powered on.



> Help me out here; What is an enclosure? Thanks.


An enclosure is the actual plastic or metal box that, well, is basically your external drive.  It typically has a USB, Firewire or eSATA port, a port to connect a power cable, and sometimes an on/off switch.  It houses an ATA or SATA base disk drive, pretty much identical to the hard drive that is inside your computer.  It "encloses" the actual drive.


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

Thanks. I think we're on the same page. You described exactly what I have done...I have yanked the firewire out or I've disconnected the flashdrive before it was actually "done" after I dragged the icon to the trash....Or, I've had issues with my G4 and had to power down as it would freeze in sleep mode...that sort of thing. 

I have noticed that since getting the MacBookPro, if I do accidentally leave something plugged in, when the computer reboots, all is still okay...(the G4 stopped doing this a number of years ago). In fact, if anything was still connected the computer would usually hang on sleep....I'd come into the office and find the computer would be churning away and had never shut down....

I've also unchecked "put to sleep whenever possible" to see how that does for me. 

In any event, I do believe, however, getting back to the Lacie, is that I am going to treat it with kid gloves until I get a chance to have it looked over...

Also, I'm in the process of pulling stuff off the old G4 and plan on reformatting and selling if possible. IT was a great machine, and I have two good hard drives in it, but either I need to get a monitor for it so I can use it as a hard drive in "T" mode, or I need to simply "move on."


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## TuckerdogAVL (Oct 20, 2009)

Just had another thought. Can I get an enclosure for the second hard drive that I had put into the G4 and use it as a stand alone external?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 21, 2009)

TuckerdogAVL said:


> Just had another thought. Can I get an enclosure for the second hard drive that I had put into the G4 and use it as a stand alone external?


Yep, you sure can.

G4s used IDE/ATA hard drives (not SATA like the newer ones do), and most cases sold today are of the SATA variety.  Here are a few IDE/ATA compatible enclosures:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ption=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=&srchInDesc=


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## pjbrubak (Oct 21, 2009)

I got my enclosure at Best Buy.


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## ex2bot (Oct 22, 2009)

I bought an external (1 TB) Simpledrive (I think that's the name) on clearance at Best Buy, and it's flaky. It will disconnect improperly when I put my machine to sleep. Tech support told me to un-check "Power down hard drives when possible" in the Energy Saver Preferences. Unfortunately, that didn't work.

Yes, I should have taken it back, but I bought the thing to store my data when I sold my previous machine. I need the space since my new machine has a smaller hard drive. Testing the drive with DiskWarrior has never uncovered any errors, even with the improper unmounts.

But boy is it annoying!

Bot

P.S. Does anyone know of a high-quality yet inexpensive FireWire 800 enclosure?


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## Satcomer (Oct 22, 2009)

What Mac do you have? I ask this because if it is a Mac Mini then you could get the NewerTech miniStack case. If not then you could get OWC Mercury Elite enclosure kit.


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## ex2bot (Oct 22, 2009)

Thanks, Satcomer. I have a MacBook Pro and a mini. The Mercury Elite Pro is the least expensive, I may go that route.


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## pjbrubak (Oct 22, 2009)

I have a Rocketfish brand enclosure.  It was recommended to me over other models by the salesman.  It was like 80 bucks.  So far it works great.


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