Finder says can't eject external drive because programs are using it, but they're not

[willryan42]

I'm trying to eject an external hard drive (not used with Time Machine) but keep getting the "can't eject because one or more programs is using the drive" and asks me if I'd like to force eject.

I've quit every application, emptied the trash, restarted, verified/repaired the disk, made sure it wasn't indexing in Spotlight (there was no progress bar so I'm assuming it's not), relaunched Finder/TotalFinder, no luck.

I ran this terminal code after a google search of this problem and this is the result:

unknown60334b106529:~ will$ lsof +fg +D /Volumes/"Toshiba External" | grep -v EVO
lsof: WARNING: can't opendir(/Volumes/Toshiba External/.Trashes): Permission denied
lsof: WARNING: can't opendir(/Volumes/Toshiba External/.Spotlight-V100/Store-V2/AC3334E1-B614-478D-8156-C951F780D844): Permission denied
lsof: WARNING: can't opendir(/Volumes/Toshiba External/.DocumentRevisions-V100): Permission denied
COMMAND   PID     USER   FD   TYPE FILE-FLAG DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
UserEvent 729 willryan   64r   DIR         R    1,9     1292    2 /Volumes/Toshiba External
UserEvent 729 willryan   65r   DIR         R    1,9     1292    2 /Volumes/Toshiba External

Any ideas? I don't know if this is a premature sign of the drive failing, but I'm stumped.

 

[balamw]

kill -9 729

Then try again?

Not sure what UserEvent is maybe some clues here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1089022/

B

 

[willryan42]

Nope, that didn't do anything. I also tried killing the UserAgent process in Activity Monitor but no luck. I'll take a look at the link you posted. Thanks!

 

[RoelJuun]

I have the same problem, ejecting my disk prompts me to force eject the disk. And that's only for the Time Machine partition. Very annoying.

 

[willryan42]

Yeah I don't know what the deal is. I've had this drive for over a year and never had this problem until a couple days ago. I've been force ejecting it because I have no other option, hopefully I'm not making it worse...

 

[Kevenly]

Any solutions found? I have been having this problem with an external 1TB Firewire drive for MONTHS now. Sometime after installing Mountain Lion. I have been using the drive for years without issue. I have tried every disk utility. I can't find anything using the drive. It is a major hassle. It is a 1TB drive with an NTFS partition and an HFS+ partition. The NTFS partition ejects without error but the HFS+ partition is always flagged as in use no matter what. I have no idea what went wrong with it but there must be a flag somewhere that can be flipped to off. I'm at my wit's end with it.