Disk Not Ejected Properly

At night my iMac is usually on standby. Most mornings I find 1 or more identical windows have appeared, each telling me that 1 or more of my 6 external drives has '...Not Ejected Properly', even though I personally have not ejected anything overnight. Nevertheless everything seems in working order so I just click on 'close'. Still, I'm curious to know if anyone else gets this and why. I've been getting this for a couple of years on my 4-year-old iMac. I upgraded to Yosemite last month but it's made no difference.

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OK, now I've posted my thread the Forum has revealed related threads: The various helpful replies all point out that I should eject my drives before sleep. That just leaves me with a couple of related questions:

1) Should I eject my 'Time Machine' drive along with my five other drives?

2) If I forget to eject all the drives, are they and their contents at risk when the 'Disk Not Ejected Properly' message appears?

Thanks everyone.

Newby

Here's my take which may differ from others...

I only attach my Time Machine drive when I'm doing a backup. I see no reason to keep it attached at all times, however, this means you need to have a good backup regimen schedule you can keep. In other words, do not forget. (I use Time Machine once a week.) However, I also use CCC to make backups more often.

And yes, if your drives are dismounted or ejected improperly you could lose data and even lose the drive. I recently lost a Toshiba USB 3 drive because of an improper ejection due to a defective hub.

Personally prefer SuperDuper to clone hard drive rather than TM, but follow same procedure as chscag. If you want to back up simply connect, use, disconnect and put away.

You know, in the last 6+ years, and now on my third & fourth iMac (running concurrently), I have never had this message. I have always had my Time Machine permanently mounted. Presently, I keep 2 Time Machines on my newest machine and one on the other mounted permanently. Whether in sleep mode or otherwise, I have never had this happen.

In fact, I rather thought the whole point of TM was to keep it mounted and let it get on with the business.

And on occasions, I've mounted an EHD to update SuperDuper! and let it run. Mac goes to sleep and on awakening, job done. No eject message.

So, are my senior colleagues saying that my practice is not recommended?

Ian

So, are my senior colleagues saying that my practice is not recommended?

Click to expand...

No of course not. As a matter of fact, the method you use is recommended by Apple. I find no need to do it that way because I additionally use CCC to make backups. And... I'm very diligent in keeping up with my backup schedule. As we know, most folks who come to us for help do not have the same backup regimen that you and I have.

Ian if it works ~ fine. Some have reported problems of incorrectly dismounting when the Mac goes into sleep mode causing corruption and the message 'not ejected correctly'.

I keep mine connected all the time too. The only time I've gotten that message is from a bad connection, either a bad cable or a loose plugin on the hub.

I have been using Macs for 30 years... This is a new problem I just can't seem to solve.

I have a 4 year old iMac. I keep a backup drive attached all the time. When it goes to sleep at night... I do not usually shut down...I continually get the pop-up message "Disk Not Ejected Properly" When I click the Close message... they all.. (from 10-15) messages leave the page...
My cables are tight and the disk is not moved around at all.... it sits very still on the desk.

Either remove the drive before your machine sleeps for the night or exchange it for another drive. Your external hard drive is probably waking up briefly and then goes back to sleep and when your machine senses it, it will appear as if the drive was ejected. If it happens many times you'll wind up with a message for each time. Any data on that external hard drive is at risk each time it does that.

As above. You are going to eventually corrupt the hard drives, and lose all the data on them if you continue to ignore the "disk not ejected properly" warning.

Also, SIX external drives?? It's really very very much time to consolidate that.

And particualrly so if the drive is bus powered.

Afbennett said:

I have been using Macs for 30 years... This is a new problem I just can't seem to solve.
… … …

Click to expand...

When did the problem suddenly start and with what OS X version, or which is now being used?

We have several Macs, neither one is using the latest OS X versions, and most have an external drive attached and with various partitions, and none exhibit any such "Disk Not Ejected Properly" message when the Macs are put to sleep.