External HD was not disconnected properly...

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I have an ext. HD connected to Mac G4. After waking up, a message says the device was not put away properly. I leave my ext. HD alone. After a short time, the ext. HD shows up on desktop. Does this message mean anything is wrong? Could I just keep using my ext. HD while this message comes on each time?
This message came on since I installed a PCI card. Before, the ext. HD was connected to one of the original ports.
Thanks a million.
 

eric


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while its showing up, perhaps you want to do a repair permissions on it? might make those errors go away. couldn't hurt anyway.
 
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johntalin
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"Repair Disk Permission" was not available for the ext. HD. I was able to do "Verify Disk". I also have an option "Repair Disk" for the ext. HD. But, I was not sure if I should do that. I also noticed that when doing "Verify Disk" on the ext. HD it dismounts the drive while running and then mounts it back when done. When I selected the int. HD instead, then "Repair Disk Permission" was possible, but not the "Repair Disk". What is the difference? And, what should I do?
 
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If your Ext HD is formatted NTFS this could be the explanation as to why you can't select your Ext HD for repairing permissions. NTFS doesn't allow Macs to write, only read access is allowed. What is the format of your Ext HD?

The difference between Repair Disc Permissions and Repair Disc in a nutshell is that Permissions relate to whether or not you can read/write/modify a file. Your permissions on a certain file created by another user may be read only, or read/write/modify etc. Repair Disc is where Disc Utility detects an error with the HD and is able to repair it.
 
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The format says "MS-DOS File System (FAT32)" which is confusing to me, because I formated for Mac. Ownership & Permissions says "You can read and write". This is what the window showed after "Verifying Disk".
Verifying volume “WD Passport”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
** Phase 4 - Checking for Lost Files
8159 files, 1442208 free (1749005 clusters)
Mounting Disk
1 non HFS volume checked
Volume passed verification
 
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The format says "MS-DOS File System (FAT32)" which is confusing to me, because I formated for Mac. Ownership & Permissions says "You can read and write". This is what the window showed after "Verifying Disk".
Verifying volume “WD Passport”
** /dev/disk1s1
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
** Phase 2 - Check Cluster Chains
** Phase 3 - Checking Directories
** Phase 4 - Checking for Lost Files
8159 files, 1442208 free (1749005 clusters)
Mounting Disk
1 non HFS volume checked
Volume passed verification

Sounds OK to me ...FAT32 is a good format for an ext HD as it will work with a PC as well as your Mac. If you formatted it solely for your Mac it would be in HFS format.

Here is some info about Mac formatted HD's:

Formatting external USB (Universal Serial Bus) hard disk drives
Many USB hard disk drives are DOS-formatted at the factory. You can use DOS-formatted USB hard drives with your computer, but you will get much better performance if the USB hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Standard. To reformat the hard drive to Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Standard format, use the formatting utility that came with the USB hard drive. If you do not have a formatting utility, you can change the drive to Mac OS format by following the steps below.

WARNING: Erasing the hard drive will destroy any data stored on the drive.

1. If you haven't already done so, connect the external USB hard drive to your computer and turn it on.
For more information, see the topic Connecting USB devices to your computer in Mac Help and the documentation that came with the device.
2. Open the Apple menu, select Control Panels, then choose File Exchange.
The File Exchange control panel opens.

3. If necessary, click the PC Exchange tab.

4. Click the checkbox next to Mount at startup. (The checkbox should be blank.)
This turns off PC Exchange.

5. Click the close box to close the control panel.

6. Click the USB drive's icon on the Desktop, then from the Special menu choose Erase Disk.
A window appears.

7. From the Format pop-up menu, select Mac OS Extended or Mac OS Standard format, then click Erase.

When you put your G4 to sleep, are you connected to a network by any chance?
 
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johntalin
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I do usually leave my comp. connected to network. This time I quit my browser and email and then let my comp. to sleep, the outcome was the same when it awoke. Like usual, the ext. HD icon had dissapeared during sleep and reapeared a few seconds after waking up. Then I saw the same warning message as usual.
 

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