How do I safely remove an external hard drive?

Questions about hardware, drivers and peripherals
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
paulkaiser98

How do I safely remove an external hard drive?

Post by paulkaiser98 »

I installed Linux Mint 14 Cinnamon edition this morning. When I finished restoring my files from my external hard drive, I right-clicked it to safely remove the drive. However, there was no option to do so. There was only an option to unmount, which really does not turn off the hard drive. In my experience, removing the external hard drive with the light still on corrupts the hard drive/NTFS, making it unusable unless I use a Windows computer to fix it. Is there a way to completely and safely remove the hard drive (not just unmounting)? Can I add an option to Files, or can I use the terminal to safely remove it?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
User avatar
Flemur
Level 20
Level 20
Posts: 10097
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 9:41 pm
Location: Potemkin Village

Re: How do I safely remove an external hard drive?

Post by Flemur »

I'm guessing that the HD you want to remove is connected via USB, and I'm just guessing at the software you're using to access the device.

Here's my experience, none of which has messed up the NTFS partition on a USB mounted drive:
- type "sync" in a terminal before removing drive (this flushes from the IO cache to the disk). Is it necessary? I dunno.
- thunar has an "Eject" option. It'll incorrectly say that it's still writing data...ignore it.
- pcmanfm has "unmount" but no "eject" - it'll usually crash when it "unmounts" the partition.

IOW, thunar and pcmanfm are buggy and therefore suck, but they don't break the NTFS partition or drive.
Please edit your original post title to include [SOLVED] if/when it is solved!
Your data and OS are backed up....right?
echo33

Re: How do I safely remove an external hard drive?

Post by echo33 »

I am having the same problem.
Chris_Z
Level 1
Level 1
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2012 4:18 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: How do I safely remove an external hard drive?

Post by Chris_Z »

A little script is posted in Comment #31 here.
It seems to work close to what "Safely Remove" did.
Locked

Return to “Hardware Support”