Some of my external drives (of various types, sizes, and age) can be ejected w/o any issue. Others refuse, saying they can't be ejected because "Finder is using it". I have to close the Finder window and open another window to eject these drives.  Is there any reason--any settings that I can control--why this happens?
122110
Sometimes, a volume refuses to eject because some program is using them.  Sadly, Finder doesn't give the identity nor gives a way to solve the problem.  So, how do you solve this problem in a clean way, without using a terminal ?  Using the terminal, I may find a way to eject it, but it's not reliable.  sudo lsof | grep volumeName certainly gives some information, but I don't feel like killing random processes in order to unmount a volume. Also, not everybody is willing to run command in a terminal.  I also don't want to force eject the volume. I think we shouldn't have to force the ejection when we didn't initially run the program that locks the volume.  Processes that are frequently involved are: mds and notifyd.  Killing mds does not guarantee that the ejection of the volume will be possible. mds process is respawned after getting killed, and continues preventing the ejection of the drive.  I also noticed that mds can be running and using files, and still not preventing the ejection of the volume, so I'm not even sure that it's mds fault.
94233
While a similar question was raised , it doesn't seem to be a solid answer but more of a theory. In addition my case is a bit different as you will see below.    You will note that I have two home drives, one being a mount to a share on my NAS and the other in question being the one within localhost.  What value do the home and net drives within localhost serve other than being part of default *nix folder structure? Is this anything more than a local representation that exists by *nix default? Is it safe to eject these drives or is the OS using them in some fashion which may not be readily apparent?
85211
When a network drive () is physically disconnected, Windows Explorer (and other programs) keeps trying to enumerate and/or use it for maybe 60 seconds.  Is there some way to reduce this timeout to maybe 5 seconds?  Just to clarify, I'm not asking about network drives that are automatically disconnected by Windows after a certain period of time, or about automatic reconnections during login.  The question is about this:  Connect a network drive to another computer. Then turn that other computer off. Then try to reconnect the network drive, e.g. by double-clicking in Windows Explorer → very long timeout. How do I reduce this timeout?
50698
I frequently connect different external USB hard drives and flash drives to my computer and I would like to facilitate deleting files and regaining disk space from them.  If I simply delete the file, it will be kept in a hidden trash folder on the external drive until I empty the Trash. This also forces me to empty my local trash simultaneously while the external disk is still connected to regain the disk space, which is undesirable.  At the moment, the only other "solution" I've found is moving the file to the internal hard drive and then trash it. This is not optimal because I waste time moving files from one drive to another (I regularly deal with 20GB+ VMs).  How can I permanently delete a file from an external drive, bypassing the trash?
76242
Sometimes I unplug my usb drive only to find out files were not written to it.   I suppose the only way to ensure files are written to it is to right click on the USB drive on the desktop and then select "un-mount", but sometimes I forget.  What is the best way to ensure files are written to the USB drive instantly? This way I can remove the USB drive as soon as I notice the LED light on the USB drive stopped blinking.  OS: CentOS 6
92919
When my Seagate external hard drive is plugged in, its $RECYCLE.BIN folder automatically contains all the files contained in the Recycle Bin of the PC. Is it true that actually we don't have any Recycle Bin of external hard drive, rather it is the Recycle Bin of the PC? Why is it so?
110034
I have an external HD which used to be my TimeMachine drive. I got a different drive for that, so I want the original drive back as an external on my Windows box, but it has this random 200 MB partition labeled as EFI System Partition. How do I get rid of this?
70686
I'm hoping someone can help! I recently downloaded a torrent directly onto an external hard drive, (using a 2009 MacBook Pro and 1TB Seagate Expansion portable Drive) somehow during the download the drive was accidentally ejected, since this incident when I plug the drive back in it’s having problems reading.  The drive works fine for about 10 minutes, I can read/copy/paste and access files but then starts to wreak havoc; apps hangs, it hangs the Finder, etc.  I’ve tried repairing it in Disk Utility, which reads and repairs this disk but problems inevitably continue as described above.  I’ve deleted the Torrent file also. All my files on this external drive so re-formatting is not an option until I can retrieve them.
83166
Ok, so when I try to delete this from my desktop, I get this error:    When I click "See what's locking this" in lock hunter, I get this:    Now, I have a drive, called G:. I only have one physical drive, and it's D:. Also, I have NO virtual drive software installed, so I have NO clue how it got there. Right-clicking on G:\ and chosing eject doesn't do anything but change the logo, it still says the file size and whatnot. Here's the picture of the "What's locking this?" of the contained file:    But when I try to delete it...    Both of these files don't let me delete them. I had put win8install.iso as a virtual drive a while back, but I uninstalled that software (but can reinstall it if needed)  Starting this in safe mode doesn't work.
3238
I'm planning on selling a used external HDD on eBay.  Are there any applications for Mac out there (preferably free) that can show me statistics about the usage history for the drive so that I can let potential buyers know the condition more precisely?
34056
First off I did try the power options setting and it's on 'Never' but that did nothing. The drive still spins down after 15-20 seconds of not being used. I need it to spin all the time because it's more efficient with my way of using it. Also listening to music from that drive is absolutely destroying the drive making it spin up and down all the time causing immense wear and tear. Any ideas on how to stop it from spinning down? Please don't suggest bat files that keep creating editing a file.  &nbsp;  Oh and here is the model of the drive: wdc wd10jpvx-22jc3t0 and my OS is Windows 10 64 bit.
90163
Here's my problem: over the past couple days I did a really good clean out of my computer and managed to free up several gigabytes of data and was hovering around 233+ gb of free space.   Then in the last couple of days I noticed my trash file was taking a really long time to empty (I don't know if this is part of the problem but wanted to mention it just in case).  Last night I noticed I was missing quite a lot of space on my drive, it was around 205 gigs now. I discovered I had accidentally set some large torrent files to be on my main drive instead of an external. No matter, I figured! I would just delete them and start them over on the external. But my disk space didn't seem to change. So I rebooted - after all I had recently used Photoshop and that tends to hog a bunch of space and I don't get it back until I reboot.  I rebooted and there was still the same ~205 gb of free space. I was very confused. I was even more confused when I checked "About My Mac" and saw that it was telling me that in actual fact I only had around 90gbs of free space. THE HECK!?  I did notice that my "backups" were surprisingly high - 119gb in fact. This was especially curious since I have a time machine drive (time capsule) thats supposed to be backing up hourly. I did get a message this morning telling me it was full, but isn't it supposed to clear itself out?  Running WhatSize (it's still running by the way) I see that my .MobileBackups folder is a gargantuan 134gb! I thought these were temporary! For when I'm not connected to Time Machine (WHICH I AM!)  What in the hell is going on? How did I magically lose close to 25 gigs? And how the hell do I get it back?
63751
I have extra internal and external hard drives in my computer.  One I use to keep some unused files, and the other I use for backup of my C: drive.  How can I limit anyone that uses my pc under the guest account to even be able to see this HDD?  Furthermore, I actually would like to give guest access to a media folder in one of the hard drives, so I would like to know:   Can I hide a drive from a guest user? How? Can I only make folders unavailable (not hide them) and still share a folder? How?
122509
I want to disable a particular USB storage device (a sandisk flash drive). I read somewhere that you can use the .config file. How do i use it to disable that?
80151
I've just had an issue pop up related to my drives.  First things first, I was working in my case when I clumsily shifted the foot of the case off of my desk. Case shifted and hit the desk somewhat hard, but only fell an inch or two. It had been properly shut down so this may not have anything to do with the issue.  After booting up, I noticed that when playing a video from my F: Drive (Seagate), it produced a whine, almost a chirping sound coming from the hard drive bay. I think I may have heard this before the drop, but quieter.  Fearing impending failure I downloaded GSmartControl and inspected the drive information. The Seagate drive displayed a high Raw Read Error Rate, as well as a high Seek Error Rate.  I've read some of these values can be high on Seagate drives from the start. This drive is about 6 months old and the producer of the noise.  I also checked my Toshiba drive, which came with a refurbished prebuilt I bought about a year ago. It showed more normal SMART data, but displayed some concerning statistics (2 "Mechanical Start Failures" and 2 "Reported Uncorrectable Errors").  Both of the drives passed the basic SMART test, but the noise was quite alarming. It would stop as soon as a paused the video and start right up again as soon as I resumed playing.  Here is an album with 3 photos of the SMART data, the Seagate did not display statistics.  Could I please have help interpreting the SMART data, and whether this may indicate an impending failure?   Thank you for your time.   Here are images of the SMART data.
32281
I have 2 * Maxtor Onetouch 4 Lite 500GB external hard drives (part no. 9NT2A4-500). They both used to work fine on my old laptop (an Acer) but I have not used them for about a year, since my laptop was stolen and I got this one (also an Acer [Aspire 7738G]). I have one plugged into the mains with one of the leads I believe was supplied with them. It appears to be receiving power as it is warm and the power light (on the unit itself) is on; also the mains adapter is fairly warm.  I also have it plugged into my laptop with a USB lead which I have tested on my mp3 player (so I know it works). However my hard drive is not showing on my computer. I have tried checking for new hardware, installing the software that was supplied with it, checking drive letters in case it is registered as C: or something stupid, checking for problems etc... I can't find any cause for it to do this. It does appear to be starting up and, possibly, shutting down and restarting constantly (that's what it sounds like altho I can't be certain).  I have had both hard drives stored in different places for the last year and they're both doing the same thing.. if it was only one then I'd guess it had got damaged or corrupted or something but since it is both I doubt this is it. The only things in common with both of them are the leads and the laptop, however I know the USB lead works and guess the mains lead works as there is power going to the unit.  Has anyone come across this before or does anyone have any idea what the cause / solution to the problem is? Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Regards, Richard
111432
The "Trash" of a 16-GB usb2 flash drive had 3.4-GB of data. I emptied it as such:     $ cd /Volumes/FooDrive/.Trashes/501   $ rm -rf *   This took over 5-seconds. That seemed pretty long. So, as a test I just decided to empty the Trash of all of my drives via Finder. Other drives: 2-TB usb3 500-GB usb2 16-GB usb2 250-GB ssd  I measured the size of the Trash as such:       $ du -ch /Volumes/WhateverDrive/.Trashes   There was 15-GB in the Trash of the 500-GB drive, and 5-GB in the Trash of my other 16-GB flash drive. I didn't measure the other drives.  Finder appeared to take much less than 5-seconds to empty the Trash for all those drives.   Does Finder really empty the Trash so much more quickly than /bin/rm? How?   Does Finder just make the "clicking sound" (signaling the trash is empty) before the Trash on all the drives is really empty?