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"Disk not ejected properly". I have never made any kind of effort to "eject" any disk. If that is done, the man who takes care of my computer does it when he is here. But I think you may have told me what happebed with your question. Are you meaning there is an "eject" button on my keyboard? I do not see one. However, if there is, then I may have accidentally hit that key and caused the unwanted "eject" improperly.
Thank you. And if there is an Eject button on my keyboard, could it have another name?
I guess I am going to learn more than I thought. The only "disk" Iam aware of is the backup disk. Hmmm?
When your Mac is in sleep mode the hard drive or SSD is parked, and the screen is turned off (just like when you close your eyes and fall asleep)
But during the night the OS updates itself if you have set the computer to update itself. Even so, it will give or flag a note on the screen telling you that a "new update is available and will be installed later on tonight."
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Now, about the warning about not ejecting a disk properly. Have you connected a flash card, or a CD player, or a similar external device to your Mac before? If that's the case, this is what you should do the next time, before you disconnect the device: click on it, and drag it to the trashcan. Now, disconnect the external device.
If you decided to connect your phone to your Mac, when done and before you disconnect it from your Mac: eject it first, and then disconnect it. Some older Macs have an eject key you can use to eject the external device before disconnecting them. In this case you can eject the device by either the eject button, or by dragging it to the trashcan, then disconnect it.
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You can leave your Mac turned on, or you can turn it off every now and then. It doesn't matter.
I am not conserned about its energy-saving powers. I am concerned about it not opening up again when I come back. I should be able to press any keyboard and have it in action. I used to be able to. So, I just thought maybe I was staying away too long. I guess not. Something else.
After re-reading Macroy's post I went digging for the paper I'd jotted the messge on. Its full message was "Disc not ejected properly. Eject Time Machine 1019 before disconnecting or turning off." So, there is my problem. Time machine is a disc? Well, I had not disconnected or turned off the computer. But Whatever I did later seems to have fixed it for now.
The program has, just recently, started reporting once a week how many hours I was on the computer that week. Maybe there is a connection there.
But I still do not find an "eject" key. Thank you all. For now all seems well
"Disk not ejected properly". I have never made any kind of effort to "eject" any disk. If that is done, the man who takes care of my computer does it when he is here. But I think you may have told me what happebed with your question. Are you meaning there is an "eject" button on my keyboard? I do not see one. However, if there is, then I may have accidentally hit that key and caused the unwanted "eject" improperly.
Thank you. And if there is an Eject button on my keyboard, could it have another name?
I guess I am going to learn more than I thought. The only "disk" Iam aware of is the backup disk. Hmmm?
It may not be something YOU did specifically. If you have a port replicator and there is a USB drive plugged in, taking the computer off the replicator will in effect "eject" that drive. And you'd have that message. The same goes for an external drive with a bad cable, etc.
On a Mac (as well as most UNIX systems), you're 'supposed' to unmount/eject drives before removing them. And by drive, it may not be a physical drive. When you download a software for Mac, it often comes in a DMG file. Which is a disk image. And when you open it up, it mounts it as a disk. So when you're done, you'll need to "eject" it before you can delete it. Similar concept.
As for an eject button - older Macs and keyboard may have an eject button (upper right key) - but that is more for optical media like CDROMs. To eject external drives or disk images, you just drag the icon to the trash, right click on the media and chose eject, or, click on the eject icon in the side bar in Finder (if you have external disks showing in Finder).
Is your 'backup disk" an external drive?
EDIT - sorry, didn't see your last post. What is your timemachine backing up to (external drive, network drive...?)
My apologies. I should have said Apple computer. And it is turned off every night. So it does get its rest. As for "sleeping" or other terms, I used that term because when the screen goes black it announces that it is going into sleep mode. But, isn't that just for the monitor? I do close whatever program I've been using before I walk away. That gets me to Desk Top. That is where I get stopped. It will not open any program. A message says "disk is not ejecting properly. What it means by 'disk" i have no idea. I finally got it to working.by pushing all the connecting wires in case one was loose.
So, all I want to know is what is the wise way to do this. If it best to just shut down and start fresh by logging in again, how long should I know I'll be away to shut down?
Thank you.
I never shut my Macs down, unless I'm not going to be using them for an extended amount of time. I restart as needed, such as when installing new software or when I notice system slowness, or some other problem. That happens on average about once every two weeks. This month I rebooted my Macbook on April 1, 5, and 13. So it's been 15 days since I last restarted it. And that is the way I have been doing it for the last 13 years, and this MacBook is still running as good as the day I got it.
I turn my PC off when I... go on vacation. That's it. Shutting it down and turning it on are actually worse for it then letting it sleep. My computer is always sleeping and it wakes up in 3 seconds.
For the record, no one should be using hibernation anymore either on Windows. Notice it's not even truly an option anymore.
Hibernation is there if you want it. Totally appropriate to use it if the situation calls for it. I've always used hibernation on my laptops but I like it on my desktop as well. It's easy to enable it.
I use my home PC once a week. I hibernate because I want it exactly the way I left it the last time I used it. Same windows and apps open, settings the way I left them etc. Makes absolutely no sense to leave it on all of the time or put it to sleep. I know it will sit there for a week doing nothing. Sleep is supposed to be for when you will be away for a short time. Another annoyance with sleep is I've had issues with monitors not waking up correctly from a sleep and it's a PITA to bring them back short of a reboot. Just a preference on my part.
On my work PC, that stays on 24/7. I turn the screen off manually. I need to access it at a moment's notice if the need arises. You can get it to wake up with certain wake-on settings but I would rather make sure I can get to it from either my home PC or my phone when I need it.
It may not be something YOU did specifically. If you have a port replicator and there is a USB drive plugged in, taking the computer off the replicator will in effect "eject" that drive. And you'd have that message. The same goes for an external drive with a bad cable, etc.
On a Mac (as well as most UNIX systems), you're 'supposed' to unmount/eject drives before removing them. And by drive, it may not be a physical drive. When you download a software for Mac, it often comes in a DMG file. Which is a disk image. And when you open it up, it mounts it as a disk. So when you're done, you'll need to "eject" it before you can delete it. Similar concept.
As for an eject button - older Macs and keyboard may have an eject button (upper right key) - but that is more for optical media like CDROMs. To eject external drives or disk images, you just drag the icon to the trash, right click on the media and chose eject, or, click on the eject icon in the side bar in Finder (if you have external disks showing in Finder).
Is your 'backup disk" an external drive?
EDIT - sorry, didn't see your last post. What is your timemachine backing up to (external drive, network drive...?)
I am sorry. I cannot answer that last quesion because I do not know. I have never done anything with it. One time when the man who takes care of my machine wanted to look back to where I was working when a problem arose, asked me if I could tell him exactly when that was. I could not and he worked it out. Maybe I have two backups going? One just does backup if we have a computer crash; the other lets us deliberately move the computer back in time. (Who says we can't travel backward in time? <g>?)
As for my backup disc, yes, it is external and plugs in directly to my MacMini. And that is the wire that I pushed on to be sure it was all the way in or had worked loose. When I did that, the computer came alive. I can't imagine how a backup disk -which only backs up what I have done - can stop a computer from working and I may be wrong that it did. Just seemed that way.
Click on and open System Preferences. Look for the Time Machine icon. Click on it and see if it tells you that your external disc drive is doing automatic, scheduled backups of the entire Hard Drive.
I suspect your external disc is being used for both Time Machine, and user selected files.
FWIW, my Time Machine saved me about a year ago when my Mini's hard drive failed, and was unrecoverable/unreparable. Used Time Machine to restore all my apps and data on new Mini.
Hibernation is there if you want it. Totally appropriate to use it if the situation calls for it. I've always used hibernation on my laptops but I like it on my desktop as well. It's easy to enable it.
Yea, but it's so buried now and off by default. Windows has got Sleep down pat now. I never ever have Sleep issues. Waking up from a Hibernate is actually slower then Sleeping these days. Plus there's no need for that old hyberfil.sys file.
Obviously we are all different and have different preferences, but I don't use hibernate anywhere anymore.
Yea, but it's so buried now and off by default. Windows has got Sleep down pat now. I never ever have Sleep issues. Waking up from a Hibernate is actually slower then Sleeping these days. Plus there's no need for that old hyberfil.sys file.
Obviously we are all different and have different preferences, but I don't use hibernate anywhere anymore.
I'm greedy and don't want to lose the space to hiberfil. Desktop doesn't even sleep. Laptop I have it set to sleep when I close the lid. I think I reboot it...maybe once a month?
Click on and open System Preferences. Look for the Time Machine icon. Click on it and see if it tells you that your external disc drive is doing automatic, scheduled backups of the entire Hard Drive.
I suspect your external disc is being used for both Time Machine, and user selected files.
FWIW, my Time Machine saved me about a year ago when my Mini's hard drive failed, and was unrecoverable/unreparable. Used Time Machine to restore all my apps and data on new Mini.
Thank you, Reed. Of course those messages aren't there now but I'll bet they were. What I get today is an outline of how it does backups and when the latest were done (once an hour). Today, it has done backups at 9:29 and 10:28. Must be on eastern time or it is on standard time. Whatever, I begin to see. So, perhaps I interfered with one of its backups and we had a collision?
I must get out my Dummies and read up on this. Thanks again. Hazel
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