Internal drive keeps unmounting itself?

[TomTomTuning]

Besides the factory 1TB HD, I recently installed three additional hard drives in my MacPro5,1. The same drive has unmounted three times in the past few days. Restarting the system does not re-mount it, I have to open the case and remove the drive then put it back in.

At first I thought the issue was with the screws that attach the drive to the tray, the two rear screws did not screw in all the way, they were bottoming out. The drive was a bit loss so I figured the connection was weak. I fixed that yesterday by using two slightly smaller screws, now it's securely attached to the tray and level.

I just remoted into the computer and noticed I got the "not ejected properly" message again. I ran a Apple Hardware test yesterday and it came back fine, although the test only took about 2 minutes. I believe there was a check box to do a longer text but my Magic Mouse did not work in this screen.

I have not tired swapping the drive around to see if the problem follows the drive or if the problem is to a specific sata connection. I will try this today.

The drive was originally in a USB external enclosure and never gave me any issues.

Any ideas or tips would be appreciated!

 

[ZennZero]

I have a similar issue with one of my (WD) drives. But in my case, a restart always re-mounts it. From the research I did, people suggested that it may be due to the drive's native power saving features putting it to sleep in a way that OS X does not support.

I know that doesn't really help you, but perhaps it give you an avenue for investigation. I know some drives allow you to disable their power/sleep features in the firmware.

 

[TomTomTuning]

I have a similar issue with one of my (WD) drives. But in my case, a restart always re-mounts it. From the research I did, people suggested that it may be due to the drive's native power saving features putting it to sleep in a way that OS X does not support.

I know that doesn't really help you, but perhaps it give you an avenue for investigation. I know some drives allow you to disable their power/sleep features in the firmware.

Thanks! that's a start. I'll pull the drive out and look up the model number to see if I can find more info.

I would prefer to keep it as an internal drive but I cant resolve the issue I'll just stick it in a eSata enclosure I have... Since I just got a eSata PCIe card.

 

[TomTomTuning]

Alright, found out it's a Samsung HD103SI EcoGreen drive.

It does have a energy saving feature that spins the drive down and powers it off... How the hell do I turn that off or adjust for it.

In the mean time I've unchecked "put drives to sleep when possible' setting in Energy Saver syspref.

 

[ZennZero]

Looks like it might be something that can be done with the drive's jumpers:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/76917/

 

[TomTomTuning]

Looks like it might be something that can be done with the drive's jumpers:

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/76917/

Yea, I seen that thread yesterday but it was unclear what jumpers settings he used.

When I get home today I'll give it a try. I know some drives ship with a jumper that limits it's operation to 1.5Gb/s. I know currently SysInfo reports the drives link speed as 3Gb/s.

 

[TomTomTuning]

Since I've unchecked "Put drives to sleep when possible" setting in Energy Saver System Preference, the drive has not ejected. I wasnt sure if by unchecking this setting it would effect the non-OS drives.

I emailed Samsung and they told me to try that exact same thing. Now my question is; I have four internal hard drives, will they be okay with this setting unchecked?

 

[TomTomTuning]

Okay reporting back... The drive is still ejecting it self.
But a reboot does re-mount the drive.

I'm going to reply back to Samsung and see if they have any other recommendations.

 

[Macsonic]

I had a similar problem where one of my internal drives keeps unmounting or disappears on the desktop. A restart makes that drive reappear. Found out it was the drive that was faulty or about to expire. The drive was replaced with a new one and now it's working fine. Using a Western Digital Black Caviar.