Apple Mac mini m4 error: Disk Not Ejected Properly.

Disk not ejected properly after waking from sleep has been reported by many. Most users agree that you should not use sleep. Only have the display turn off. I struggled with this issue and finally gave up.

GregHudson1954,

I have the same setup as you, all brand new, the only difference is I have a Samsung 990 Pro 4TB SSD inside my OWC Express 1M2 which is plugged into the back of my M4 Mac Mini. I am getting the same Disk Not Ejected Properly notifications you are, but randomly and rarely after the system sleeps, and I only see one no eject notification instance for each of two partitions on the drive (one for Time Machine and one for storage, both APFS). This does not happen after every restart, and not after waking from sleep each time, just 1-2 times every two weeks randomly, and when it happens I find the storage partition still mounted (or remounted ?) and the time machine partition unmounted. I restart the system and everything is mounted and normal for 1-2 weeks. I have no login items (other than network shares mounting) and fully updated OS (Sequoia).

It is interesting yours appears to disconnect with the notifications repeatedly on reboot and more regularly. It is almost impossible to diagnose for me since it is so rare and intermittent, but maybe in your case you can narrow it down since it seems more repeatable.

GregHudson1954 Said:

"Apple Mac mini m4 error: Disk Not Ejected Properly. [...]If I reboot or restart, the drive appears for a couple of seconds, then disappears just before the stream of error messages appears.[...]"

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Thank you for the screenshot.

Unmount the Drive:

Boot into Recovery Mode. Then, using Disk Utility, see a the Hard Drive is seen. If it is, then see if you need to click the “Unmount’ button for it.

Remove Login Items:

While in Safe Mode, remove all of your Login Items, and then restart the Mac. In Safe Mode, Login Items do not open, and system caches are somewhat fixed. Point being: There may be something pending (such as a data transfer).  Go Here: Change Users & Groups Login Items Preferences on Mac - Apple Support

GregHudson1954,

Apple does not read or participate in these user to user forums. So no, TheLittles is not a moderator.

If users that have enough points see something that needs corrections, they can request that Apple make any modifications. Sorry, I don't recall how many points are needed these days. Modifications can be things like requesting: edits in a post that violate the Terms of Use, moving a thread to a more appropriate forum, etc... The final say however is Apple's. If you would like to speak to someone from Apple, you always can visit an Apple Store and speak to a Genius or if you have technical questions, give AppleCare ( AppleCare Contact Info ) a phone call. If you have feedback that you would like to offer to Apple please use www.apple.com/feedback. And of course if your computer is eligible for service (meaning it is not obsolete and vintage) you can book an appointment at your local Apple Authorized Service Provider. You can start that process by clicking the Support link in the upper right of this page.

You can ask Apple however they will not come out and say Sleep is not needed. However I agree with the statement, "Sleep is faulty operation on later Macs" , why because if you research these forums you will find hundreds of posts (if not thousands) from users that have had issues that were directly traced back to Sleep. When Sleep was turned off and the recommended solution was put in place the users problems went away! Therefore as there is a highly effective solution, Sleep simply is 100% unnecessary.

I disagree with the idea that there is "no" benefit from the sleep function on later Macs, even on my Mac Mini M4 Pro with the very latest hardware and OS. There is a benefit from the sleep function when you consider it places my OWC Express 1M2 in standby mode with the light off, going from feeling like a little space heater with the well designed heat sink doing its job, to sitting idle and cold to the touch. In this sleep state my UPS also reports the total system power, including my 27" Studio Display (on but asleep) is only one (1) Watt, going from 40+ watts when awake but idle! One watt, amazing! Everything is ready to go right after I wiggle my mouse and it wakes within 1-2 seconds, drives still mounted*. That is just too cool (no pun intended) to give up on, and how the hardware and software was engineered to work.

Having said all that, I agree that if you just can't get sleep to work as it should, it is not worth endless troubleshooting. It might make more sense to just disable sleep and let everything just draw whatever power it does and not worry about unnecessary component wear since this hardware is designed to last many years fully powered and running warm. You will upgrade before that anyway.

*As I mentioned in my other post, I did have some rare and random Drive Not Ejected Properly notifications after sleep but I think I may have resolved that now by fixing another possibly related issue I will also post about separately because others have been complaining about it. That is the issue of having a UPS (in my case an Eaton 5SC) connected by USB cable (for status reporting and auto shutdown by MAC OS) causing the Mac Mini M4 go to sleep and put external drives like the 1M2 asleep but wake up every few minutes, repeatedly. I suspect this constant sleep/wake every few min for hours with the external drive light going dark and blinking back/forth may lead to an eventual hiccup between the drive and OS. I noticed that by unplugging the USB cable to the UPS and just having it as a non-communicating power outlet, the Mac Mini and external drive would sleep peacefully and wake normally as expected. Then I found that if I connected an APC UPS (Back Ups Pro 1000 S) to the Mac Mini with the USB cable, the sleep functioning was still normal and now I still have the UPS status communication and auto shutdown capability. So I am now using the APC unit with no problems at all, no disk eject notifications after sleeping normally/consistently. I am disappointed that the Eaton 5SC was causing some issue with USB communication interfering with Mac Mini sleep because that is the UPS I wanted to keep using, but good for APC apparently having better communication compatibility with the Mac Mini and Sequoia.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has had this issue with UPSs with USB connections and sleep.

What does OWC have to say about it?

GregHudson1954 Said:

"[...]A super the following suggestion, I am also in the process of removing all (3) startup Apps to see if that helps, then unmount the drive in recovery mode. I doubt it will work, as it is all brand new hardware...[...]"

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Plug the Drive to Eject this Disk:

I take it you've recently plugged in this drive to your computer, and then just pulled it out. Do you still have this drive? If so, plug it in, and then drag its icon to the Trash --the drive won't delete, but rather it will be ejected. That has fixed this for me. If you don't have this disk, then you might be out of luck.

It’s not a statement, it’s fact: there’s no benefit to be had from to enabling Sleep on later Macs - none whatsoever. The only “fix” to this self-created problem is disabling the setting that’s causing it i.e. Sleep. You have the screenshots- just do it.

Using the Mac to Sleep your externals 🙄…now if that’s not faulty operation it sure is funny operation!

What you’re pointing to is a defect in the OWC Express 1M2 - it should have a built-in Sleep function in the firmware (Toshibas do).

Bottom line: Shut, don’t sleep. Sleeping is dumb! Ok??? Have a nice day.

hcsitas wrote:

Using the Mac to Sleep your externals 🙄…now if that’s not faulty operation it sure is funny operation!

What you’re pointing to is a defect in the OWC Express 1M2 - it should have a built-in Sleep function in the firmware (Toshibas do).

Bottom line: Shut, don’t sleep. Sleeping is dumb! Ok??? Have a nice day.

Yeah yeah, everyone are guilty but not the Apple for sure. Not so old monitors flickering issues, not Apple... when really it is the root cause of these problems. Macs are not going to sleep properly - not Apple again, when it is... Now disk disconnections - not Apple again. And I'm almost sure that this is happening because of Apple's bugs again.

My case is slightly different but similar. I had one seagate one touch 4tb external drive which was connected to Mini M1 with Ventura. Not a single disconnection problem. Purchased new Mini M4, connected this disk to it - started to see hard disk disconnections. In my case disconnections are not happening frequently, maybe one-two times each day or each second day. And they can happen even when I'm at my mac - disk disappears, appears again and I have this error after that. Tried to change cables - no change at all.

And additional thing. Purchased one more Seagate One Touch 5TB disk and connected to this mac - the same not frequent disk disconnections. Changed cables - no change at all.

Yeah yeah, not Apple for sure...

[Edited by Moderator]