How to determine what's being used on a connected server?

I mounted my MacBook on the desktop of my Power Mac earlier today
so that I could transfer a file. Now when I try to unmount the
MacBook, I get the error message, "The operation could not be
completed because the disk 'MacBook HD' is in use."

How can I figure out what my Mac Pro thinks is still being used
on the MacBook so that I can get it unmounted? I looked at Process
Viewer, but nothing jumped out at me. (Although truth be told,
aside from the UNIX daemons and the obviously named application
processes, I'm not sure what most of the process names mean. )

(I've got 10.2.8 on the Mac Pro and 10.4.11 on the MacBook,
if that matters.)


Thanks!
Patty

 

I assume both your "Mac Pro" references are supposed to be "PowerMac"
and there isn't a third computer involved.

On the PowerMac, do you have any disk images from the MacBook mounted?
If so, eject them first. All mounted disk images are open files.

I don't know offhand what command line tools are available on 10.2.8,
but more recent systems have an 'lsof' tool which can be used to list
open files. You could do something like this in Terminal:

lsof | grep MacBook

A more brute force solution: quit each application running on the
PowerMac, and try ejecting the MacBook HD again after each one. If you
are able to eject it, then the previous application you quit had
something open on the drive.

If quitting all applications doesn't solve it, log out and log in again.

 

use lsof (list open files) in the terminal shell in order to get a
listing of all open files and their
associated processes. once you've spotted the process in question you
can terminate it. see also 'man ls'.

chris

 

If I remember correctly with 10.2.8 (and earlier), you could not unmount
a volume if Finder was still calculating folder size. And if you tried
to eject it while it was doing that, the volume basically became
unejectable. I haven't really had that problem since moving past 10.2...

To get around it, I learned to use the umount command line tool.

Greg B.

 

Hi, Dave et al.

Well, the problem "solved" itself this time. When I woke up
the Power Mac this morning, it crashed. :-( Of course, when
I restarted it, it no longer had a connection to the MacBook.
But for future reference, I still appreciate all the ideas.

A few responses below...

Oops. ;-) Yes, you're correct--there were only two computers.

Nope, nothing like that.

Yes, lsof is available in 10.2.8. I just tried that on the Power Mac,
and got a list of files that was even more esoteric than what I saw
with Process Viewer. So I'm not sure that I'd be able to identify
the troublemaker with lsof, but I'll keep it in mind. Thanks to Chris
for suggesting lsof, also.

Yeah, I did that with MS Word, since the file I transferred had been
a Word file. But (1) that didn't work, and (2) I know that I was viewing
the file on the Power Mac, not using Word on the Power Mac to view the
version of the file on the MacBook. So Word shouldn't have been "linked"
to the MacBook anyway. Good idea to try quitting other apps one by one.

Ah, you know, since I'm the only one who ever uses this computer,
and thus never log out, it never occurs to me to try logging out
as a way to solve system problems.

Also, Greg, the MacBook had been mounted for an hour or more, so
even if the Power Mac was trying to gather folder-size data, it
should have been long finished. But I'll check that next time
this happens, and see whether some of the folder sizes aren't
displayed yet. Given that I ruled out the only user application
(Word) that might have wanted to talk with the MacBook, a system
process of some sort was certainly the likely candidate for the
problem.


Patty

 

Another one which I've struck occasionally: if you have a Terminal
window open, and the current directory is set to be anywhere on the
MacBook hard drive, then that directory is "open" and you won't be able
to eject the MacBook's hard drive.

You can solve this one by closing the Terminal window, or by entering a
'cd' command with no arguments, which will take you back to your home
folder.

That's why I suggested the compound command:

lsof | grep MacBook

This will list all open files (that your user account has open) and pipe
it to the grep tool, which will filter out all lines that don't contain
the word "MacBook" (which is part of the name of your MacBook's hard
drive, according to your earlier post).

It should only display files currently open on your MacBook hard drive,
as well as enough information to identify the offending process.

If you want to see files that ALL users and the system have open on your
MacBook, you can use the following command (you must be an
administrator):

sudo lsof | grep MacBook

You will be prompted to type in your password, and the first time you
run 'sudo' it will warn you about potential security issues.

 

Ah, got it. I thought it would list all files *on* the MacBook.
Yes, filtering the Power Mac's files to list just the ones coming
from the MacBook would be very helpful. Thanks, David.


Patty