[peeb]

Often, when I try to eject this, the finder pops up and it says:

The disc is in use, and cannot be ejected. Try quitting applications and trying again.

I can't eject it, at all, and have to remove it improperly.
Also, sometime it comes up with an organge icon, and sometime with a grey drive icon - what's going on there?
It's a FAT32 disc, and when I try to repair with Disc utiltity is says 'cannot unmount disc'.
Thanks!

[ghporter]

Have you tried shutting down the computer? It sounds like some process has a lost link to that volume, and since it's lost, it can't be freed, so OS X, knowing there's a link to the volume, tells you it's in use. Shutting down should fix it.

No clue about the icon thing though.

[peeb]

Thanks - think I have it - I think Spotlight is indexing the drive every time I plug it in, and I can't remove it until it has finished - how do I stop that?

[larrinski]

I have that same problem with having my itunes library on the external HD. I have to quit itunes, and then it will unmount.

[larrinski]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Thanks - think I have it - I think Spotlight is indexing the drive every time I plug it in, and I can't remove it until it has finished - how do I stop that?

You can go into spotlight preferences in system preferences, and under the privacy tab add the HD. I think that should work...