Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts

From	Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.mac.system
Subject	Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts
Date	2014-06-11 12:28 -0400
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<lna032$ot0$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)

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I just updated a friend's late 2012 Mac Mini from 10.8 to 10.9. It has a 
single Firewire external with 2 partitions, one for an alternate 
boot/diagnostics volume and one for Time Machine. I ran all the usual 
diagnostics (DiskWarrior, SMART, etc.) before the upgrade. Everything 
was fine.

Now whenever the machine is booted, both external partitions 
spontaneously dismount a minute or so after booting is completed, each 
producing a Finder window saying "Disk not ejected properly. Eject 
"partition name" before disconnecting or turning it off." Not only are 
both partitions dismounted, but the physical hard drive does not even 
appear in Disk Utility so there is no way to remount them. It's as 
though the external was actually unplugged or had been powered off. I 
have replugged the Firewire cable and the unit seems to have continuous 
power.

The user has done absolutely nothing to cause this. It happens on a cold 
boot or after a wake from sleep. We can remount the external by 
switching it off then on again. The partitions stay mounted until the 
machine is put to sleep. On awakening, the same dismount and messages 
occur.

So far there doesn't seem to be any directory corruption, but it's got 
me scared to death my friend's going to lose data. It's a business 
machine. I have essentially an identical setup--same Mini, same external 
with 2 partitions--and have never had this problem. Also I haven't heard 
of the problem.

One difference in our setups is that my friend has SuperDuper! set to do 
automatic backups to a sparseimage on the alternate boot partition twice 
a week. The latest version of SD! has fixed a "failure to auto-dismount 
backup volumes". Maybe the SD! fix is dismounting the partitions; but 
_both_ partitions are dismounting, not just the one holding the target 
sparseimage. However, this could be a red herring, and SD! could be 
entirely blameless.

Does anyone have any ideas on what's going wrong? Any help greatly 
appreciated!

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Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-11 12:28 -0400
  Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2014-06-11 17:00 +0000
    Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-11 16:04 -0400
      Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-11 17:30 -0400
        Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> - 2014-06-11 18:01 -0700
          Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts billy@MIX.COM - 2014-06-12 06:47 +0000
            Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-12 11:15 -0400
          Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts billy@MIX.COM - 2014-06-12 07:08 +0000
          Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-12 11:06 -0400
  Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-06-11 19:34 +0000
    Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-11 16:07 -0400
      Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts nospam <nospam@nospam.invalid> - 2014-06-11 16:11 -0400
  Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) - 2014-06-12 12:37 +1200
    Re: Help! 10.9 Spontaneous Ext. HD Dismounts Fred Moore <fmoore@gcfn.org> - 2014-06-12 11:28 -0400

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