Shut down Mac to detach or attach external drive?

[Tom Evans]

Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

Tom

[Jolly Roger]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

It's not necessary to power down a Mac to attach a USB, Firewire,
Thunderbolt, or any other connection method that supports hot swapping;
but you *do* need to make sure you *eject* mounted external volumes
*before* you disconnect or power down the corresponding external drives.

Failing to eject a volume before disconnecting it (or powering down the
drive) may result in data loss because operating systems often cache
data to be written to volumes, and disconnecting before cached data is
written to the volume results in data loss.

[nospam]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

no.

[Your Name]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

There's normally no need to shutdown or log out. Sometimes you may need
to if the drive having issues and won't dismount any other way.

To normally dismount a drive you simply eject it from the OS. There are
various ways to do that, including:

- Click on the drive's desktop icon and choose Eject
from the Finder's File menu (or press Command E).

- Click on the small eject symbol next to the drive's
name in the sidebar of any Finder window. (Note: This
symbol can be a bit flakey, so may not be there.)

- Click on the drive's desktop icon and press the Eject
key on your keyboard (if applicable) - usually F12, but
may need to hold down one of the modifier keys depending
on how your Function keys are set-up to work.

- Drag the drive's desktop icon to the Trash in the Dock
which will change to an Eject symbol (this only ejects
the drive, it doesn't not erase it or delete anything).

Check the Finder's Preferences are set to show external drive icons on
the Desktop or the sidebar.

Whichever method you choose, the OS will dismount the drive as long as
it's not still being used by an application, saving any unsaved data
and closing files, and you can unplug it once its icon disappears from
the Desktop / Finder window sidebar and the activity lights on the
drive itself go out (if there aren't any lights, such as many USB
keyring drives, then just wait a couple more seconds).



Note: There is one exception to this when using vintage / obsolete
Macs and external SCSI devices. You aren't meant to turn on
or off SCSI devices when the computer is running (even after
ejecting the disk / drive) ... although having said that I
never had any problems whenever I did it.

[nospam]

Post by Your Name

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

There's normally no need to shutdown or log out. Sometimes you may need
to if the drive having issues and won't dismount any other way.
To normally dismount a drive you simply eject it from the OS. There are

he's asking about *attaching* a drive, not dismounting one.

Post by Your Name
Note: There is one exception to this when using vintage / obsolete
Macs and external SCSI devices. You aren't meant to turn on
or off SCSI devices when the computer is running (even after
ejecting the disk / drive) ... although having said that I
never had any problems whenever I did it.

there is no issue whatsoever with turning scsi devices on or off when
the computer is running. in fact, it's quite common.

however, there *are* issues with physically connecting or disconnecting
scsi devices while the computer is running.

[Tim Streater]

Post by nospam

Post by Your Name

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

There's normally no need to shutdown or log out. Sometimes you may need
to if the drive having issues and won't dismount any other way.
To normally dismount a drive you simply eject it from the OS. There are

he's asking about *attaching* a drive, not dismounting one.

So he is.

I just plug 'em in, for firewire or USB drives.

[Your Name]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by nospam

Post by Your Name

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

There's normally no need to shutdown or log out. Sometimes you may need
to if the drive having issues and won't dismount any other way.
To normally dismount a drive you simply eject it from the OS. There are

he's asking about *attaching* a drive, not dismounting one.

So he is.
I just plug 'em in, for firewire or USB drives.

NoBrain proves yet again that his reading comprehension ability is zero.

What part of "Shut down Mac to *detach* or attach external drive?" as a
message subject can't you read? Apart from ALL of it. :-\

[Tim Streater]

Post by Your Name

Post by Tim Streater

Post by nospam

Post by Your Name

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

There's normally no need to shutdown or log out. Sometimes you may need
to if the drive having issues and won't dismount any other way.
To normally dismount a drive you simply eject it from the OS. There are

he's asking about *attaching* a drive, not dismounting one.

So he is.
I just plug 'em in, for firewire or USB drives.

NoBrain proves yet again that his reading comprehension ability is zero.
What part of "Shut down Mac to *detach* or attach external drive?" as a
message subject can't you read? Apart from ALL of it. :-\

Good. Then I, along with others, have answered both parts of the
question in separate posts.

[Tim Streater]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

No. Just drag it to the Trash with the mouse. Simples.

[nospam]

Post by Tim Streater

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

No. Just drag it to the Trash with the mouse. Simples.

read it again. he said *attaching*.

[Neill Massello]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

No, unless it's a SCSI drive.

[Mandy Liefbowitz]

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

No.
I attach and remove all sorts of drives, NAS, Spinny-HDD's and
USB/flash/thumb types and I rarely restart my machine and have *never*
logged out of it.

If you are attaching an *IN*ternal drive, powering down the box is
usually considered to be a very good idea.
Mand.

Post by Tom Evans
Tom

[Your Name]

Post by Mandy Liefbowitz

Post by Tom Evans
Is it important to shut down -- or log out from --a Mac desktop
computer before attaching an exteral drive?

No.
I attach and remove all sorts of drives, NAS, Spinny-HDD's and
USB/flash/thumb types and I rarely restart my machine and have *never*
logged out of it.
If you are attaching an *IN*ternal drive, powering down the box is
usually considered to be a very good idea.

There aren't many Mac models you can actually get into these days
anyway.

[Neill Massello]

Post by Your Name
There aren't many Mac models you can actually get into these days
anyway.

For all we know, the OP was asking about a Quadra.

[Tom Evans]

Post by Neill Massello

Post by Your Name
There aren't many Mac models you can actually get into these days
anyway.

For all we know, the OP was asking about a Quadra.

My question was about my Imac.

Thanks, guys, for your help.

Tom

[Jolly Roger]

Post by Tom Evans

Post by Neill Massello

Post by Your Name
There aren't many Mac models you can actually get into these days
anyway.

For all we know, the OP was asking about a Quadra.

My question was about my Imac.

"iMac" - for future reference.