That's the whole point, Wayne. I am not touching, disturbing, or otherwise interfering with the operation of the hard drive. Time Machine just thinks I am. I'm not willy nilly powering down -- I boot my Mac at 6:00 am every morning and work on it all day. I unplug and shut down absolutely nothing until my bedtime. I am being unfairly chastised, should that be the case. I treat my Mac like the precious gem it is. On 2011-10-31, at 3:39 PM, Wayne Dobson wrote: > Finder is chastising you for a reason... Are you unplugging the drive or > shutting it off before Finder can say goodbye? Treat the backup drive as any > other storage device, ie: un-mount properly before disconnecting. > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Oct 31, 2011, at 2:56 PM, Mary Read <m.k.read@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> At last I have something that's on-topic! Although I'm afraid it's not >> commentary -- it's another request for help. I'm hoping someone in the group >> will be familiar with the Time Capsule/external drive glitch I'm >> experiencing, or be able to point me in the right direction to resolution. >> I've already gone through Apple Care for assistance, but the problem >> persists. >> >> I've got two backup systems in place: a Western Digital 2TB USB drive using >> Carbon Copy Clone for archiving only my working files, plus a second HD >> (Seagate USB 2TB) that uses Time Machine to back up my whole system. Both >> HDs are plugged directly into main USB ports on my iMac 27", since I >> understand that a hub can make externals unhappy. >> >> The CCC backup works very well, but the Seagate drive with Time Machine >> sends me an error message at least once every hour saying: >> >> "The disk was not ejected properly. If possible, always eject a disk before >> unplugging it or turning it off." >> >> I check on my desktop and the icon for the HD is there, so it has not >> unmounted. Time Machine completes its routine despite the warning -- >> although not hourly as I've set its preferences, but here and there as it >> feels so inclined. I take this to mean that sometimes it finds the external >> HD, and sometimes does not. I can live with less frequent backups, but I am >> very keen to get rid of that very pesky finder warning. It interrupts my >> work at the most inopportune times. >> >> I've reformatted the Seagate drive twice, just to see if that would help. >> Nada. Any ideas? >> >> Thank you, >> Mary >> >> >> >> On 2011-10-31, at 12:56 PM, Frank BIrch wrote: >> >>> Excuse me for butting in but:- >>> >>> Remember that Time Capsule is a single point of failure. The odds your >>> system would go down with the Time Capsule are not great but if it was a >>> massive power spike, that your surge protector could not handle, then you >>> are toast. >> >> >> Mary Read >> http://www.maryread.com >> Mary Read 440 Old Wonderland Rd London, Ontario N6K 3R2 Ph: 519-657-4646 Fax: 519-474-7676 http://www.maryread.com m.k.read@xxxxxxxxxx