Unmount hard drives from within Pro Tools

Have you ever tried to eject a hard drive from your system that you used in a Pro Tools session while Pro Tools was still up and running? It didn’t work, did it? Here’s the scenario and solution: You’re working in a Pro Tools session and the client gives you a hard drive (or flash drive) to grab wav files from. So you take care of that, go to the desktop, and try to eject the hard drive (command E) since you’re done with it. You get some dialog box that says the hard drive is in use and can’t be ejected. Now, in the old days, I always closed the Pro Tools session I was working on, closed the application, and then went and ejected the drive. I didn’t know any better. Well there’s a much better way!! From within Pro Tools, go to the ‘Window‘ menu command on the menu bar at the top of the screen. Under Window, go to ‘Workspace‘.  On the left side it will show all hard drives on the computer. Select the one you want to eject (the client’s hard drive). Then, at the top right of that same window there is a drop down arrow (in a circle), select that. Three quarters of the way down the menu list it says ‘Unmount‘. Select it and it will unmount (eject) the hard drive! [This is an earlier blog of mine and pertains mostly to earlier versions of Pro Tools. I had Pro Tools 8 when I wrote this.] Awesome, right!? Knowing this little tidbit helps save time and makes you look more professional in front of the client! All in a day’s work! And, HEY, make it a great day! Tim

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