HD won't eject.

[chew]

I just upgraded to Snow Leopard and updated some apps. Also installed 'Keep Disc Spinning' to try to stop my Western Digital external HD giving me the beachball when it starts up and sleeps. I then couldn't eject it getting a message:

The disk "Name" couldn't be ejected because some programs may be using it.

I then tried AppZapper to get rid of KDS but I kept getting an error. Ended up deleting KDS and now I get this message:

The disk "Name" couldn't be ejected because Safari is using it.

Why would Safari be using my External HD and how do I sort this crap out?

Also my external HD won't sleep / stop now even though I deleted the KDS program.

Any advice?

Thank you.

 

[bobtomay]

Reinstall KDS and use it's own uninstaller.

Always use the uninstaller packaged with apps that make changes to the system.
I actually apply this to any app that requires me to put in my password in order to install it.

 

[chew]

Forgot to mention, when I quit Safari along with all other programs I get this:

The disk "Name" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it.

 

[chew]

I just reinstalled KDS (wasnt really an install) it just opened and asked which drive to keep spinning. There is no uninstaller that I can see.

 

[bobtomay]

Yeah, KDS was not uninstalled properly and there is still a kext in the system keeping some part of it running.

Look in the dmg that it came in.

Was this app "Keep Drive Spinning" or "Keep Disc Spinning"?
If the latter where is the link to it?

 

[bobtomay]

If it was Keep Drive Spinning - then you need to open it back up and choose to allow the drive to sleep to reset the system file it changed to begin with and then you can delete the app.

 

[chew]

Sorry, my mistake. It is Keep Drive Spinning.

Its Keep Drive Spinning.app - no dmg

 

[bobtomay]

See the above in case you missed it while posting. Give that a shot.

 

[chew]

Ok, Ive opened KDS again told it to let the HD sleep. Tried ejecting and get the same message.

The disk "Name" wasn't ejected because one or more programs may be using it.

Then I deleted using AppZapper which worked this time. Tried ejecting and get that message again. This is with no programs running.

 

[bobtomay]

Re-boot the machine.

 

[bobtomay]

If that doesn't work, head into Sys Preferences - Accounts - Startup... see if it added something there and delete it.

 

[chew]

Ok. This worked. I made sure Safari was open when I tried to eject it and it worked.

Thanks so much for your help.

BTW if I start getting the beachball again, which was the reason I tried this in the first place do you have any suggestions? I have a feeling it's the Western Digital HD that's the problem.

 

[bobtomay]

Depends on when it is you get the beachball. If you only get it when accessing the external drive, give it the time to wake the drive up and live with it.

 

[chew]

Right now it seems the drive is not going to sleep which I guess is what I initially wanted (stopping the beachball effect).

What it was doing was randomly starting up and going to sleep without me even accessing it and giving me the beachball. If I was accessing the drive and having to wait thats ok but it just paused the whole system at random without me accessing anything on it. It was only a few seconds but was incredibly annoying.

I will leave it for now and see how it behaves over the next few days.

Thanks again.

 

[Slydude]

Have you run Disk Utility or something similar to test the drive? I have a failing drive that is exhibiting similar behavior.

 

[chew]

Just verified the external HD with Disk Utility and everything seems ok.

I'm not getting the beachball anymore which is good. The HD is not going to sleep though. I've read that this isn't necessarily a bad thing as continually starting and sleeping can actually reduce a drives lifespan. Anyone have a different view on this?

 

[Stretch]

I've seen this before. If I create a bootable clone of my HDD and have it mounted, it will saw that an app is using it but nothing is. I'll just pull the plug on the drive and everything on the computer will still work. I've even had it tell me that apps I'm not using and haven't started since mounting the drive.

 

[chew]

Bobtomay, It's doing it again. Won't eject. looked in Accounts but dont see anything strange, mind you Iv'e never looked there b4. Startup? don't know what you mean.

A partition of my external HD already was bootable with Leopard. I installed Snow Leopard onto it, got everything working, erased my Imac drive and then cloned the HD onto Imac. Thing is though the HD is split in 3 but its not the partition with SL on it that won't eject. Its a partition with just documents, photos, itunes songs and other stuff.

I also find it strange that it no longer goes to sleep even though I've got rid of KeepDriveSpinning???