Mac OS X on x86 Hardware 2008–2024 Technical Archive
InfiniteMac OSx86 › OSx86 Core & 10.X › Hyperactive Harddrive
2,997 reads · 2009-08-30 – 2009-09-20
Note 10.X Core

Hyperactive Harddrive

For some reason Mac OS does not seem to like my external hard drive. It is a Free agent drive which is listed as being mac compatible (it even has a program for formatting it into the Mac file system.) Anyway, the problem is, when I…

Primary Author
@Cinema Liver Published 2009-08-30
Collection
OSx86 Core & 10.X
Archival Footprint
2,997 historical reads · 1 curated field notes (from 5 dispatches) · 2009-08-30 – 2009-09-20
Credited Voices (2)
@Cinema Liver (4)@digital_dreamer

For some reason Mac OS does not seem to like my external hard drive. It is a Free agent drive which is listed as being mac compatible (it even has a program for formatting it into the Mac file system.)

Anyway, the problem is, when I shutdown my Mac the drive continues to make noise. It is either spinning or a fan inside the drive is running.
I have sat around for 10 minutes and the drive shows no sign of stopping.

However as soon as I pull out the USB cable, the drive shuts down…pulling out the drives power cable also works, but that's not exactly a surprise.

Whenever I boot into Windows 7 and shutdown, the drive shuts down normally. So this must be a software issue.

I've looked around but the only similar issue I have found is someone who's drive needed to cool down, which is not the case with this one.

So does anyone have any ideas, reaching around to the back of my comp isn't a great, I'm also worried that whatever is causing the noise may be damaging the drive.

Author Updates & Technical Revisions

Follow-up dispatches by @Cinema Liver

Author Update #1 @Cinema Liver 2009-09-20

oh yeah, it ejects just fine, but still keeps on spinning.

I've looked around and found that apparently this happens to a lot of external drives (on both Macs and Hacks) as Mac OS doesn't know how to issue shutdown commands to certain external drives. Still haven't found an actual solution.

I've found that the drive eventually shuts down, I'm not sure exactly how long it takes but somewhere between twenty minutes and three hours.

Synthesized Community Field Notes

1 technical responses curated from 5 original dispatches

Field Note #1 @digital_dreamer 2009-09-20

Can you eject the drive prior to the shutdown?

I hazard a guess that drive doesn't recognize the shutdown/eject command from the Mac.

regards,
MAJ

Sources & Contributor Provenance (2 credited usernames · Thread #3843)
UsernameDossier ContributionDispatchesActive Window
@Cinema LiverPrimary Author42009-08-30 → 2009-09-20
@digital_dreamerContributor12009-09-20