I forgot the eject my Lacie 4 TB external hard drive.

[MacLover2011]

I have a new Lacie 4 TB external hard drive that I have been using for a few months. Yesterday I forgot to eject it before I unplugged the USB cable. My MacBook Pro gave me the usual warning that I should eject it so as not to cause any damage to the hard drive. My question is, since I only forgot not to eject it once, should I be concerned about any damage to the hard drive?

And, of course, I'm using Time Machine for the backups.

Thanks

 

[IWT]

Hi and welcome,

First thing to do is remount the Lacie Drive and check that the Drive is intact. If you are using it exclusively for Time Machine backups - I wasn't quite sure from your statement whether that was the case - then open TM from the top menu bar (NOT Finder), and choose Enter Time Machine see if it works. It will probably be all right, but check.

If in ANY doubt, reformat the Drive (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) aka HFS+) and create a new TM backup. As this is your only TM backup, you can't afford to take chances.

If the Lacie Drive is for storing local data, then open the Drive from your Desktop or Finder and make sure the data is intact.

Ian

 

[pigoo3]

I've done this from time to time (sometimes my fault...sometimes slow computer at fault)...slow to eject. I think everything should be ok. Doing this a lot could result in greater chances of an issue...mainly possible corruption of files that manage the disk file system.

- Nick

 

[MacInWin]

If in ANY doubt, reformat the Drive (Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) aka HFS+) and create a new TM backup. As this is your only TM backup, you can't afford to take chances.

Before going that route, you can use Disk Utility to run First Aid on the drive. If it reports all being OK, the drive is fine.