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Richard
Asked: 2012-01-27 10:15:53 +0800 CST

Safely Unmount External Drive on Lubuntu

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I'm using Lubuntu and have an external hard drive.

I would like to safely unmount the external hard drive.

Clicking the eject button in the file manager unmounts the drive, but does not power it down. (EDIT: Clicking on mount and then unplugging the drive means, at least on my machine, that the drive is still spinning when it's unplugged. This isn't good for the drive, so it's not good for my data!)

Naturally, 'umount' does not perform this function.

I can issue 'sudo hdparm -Y /dev/sdb', but this still leaves the drive's light on and I don't think it syncs the drive.

I seem to recall 'sudo sdparm --command=stop /dev/sdb' powering the drive down appropriately in the past, but this doesn't seem to be working now, and it's a mystery as to why the GUI doesn't have an option to do this.

Any suggestions?

lubuntu

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I think udisks --detach [device] can help you.

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  2. You can use Gnome Disk Utility (palimpsest) to power down hard drive. In Ubuntu Gnome it is available under hard drive context menu ("Safely remove ..." I guess).

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  3. This is an old thread, however, adding my answer just in case if someone wants to know.

    In Lubuntu, you can first Unmount the drive by clicking on File Manager > External Drive > right-click and Unmount.

    Now, to Eject the disk safely, click on Menu > Accessories > Disks. Here select the drive you want to eject and click on the "Power Button" on the top. This will turn the device off and should be safe to remove.

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  4. Menu → Preferences → Disks - Eject this disk button.

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  5. Unmounting the drive is enough to sync it and to be safe in unplugging it, with the added advantage of being able to remount it, if you want.

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