Re: Problems with USB disc drives?

Jim Haynes wrote:
I have a Gigabank 4GB USB disc. One problem I'm aware of is that
after telling Linux to unmount it (by clicking on the icon on the
desktop and selecting unmount) you have to wait some time after the
icon goes away before it is safe to unplug the drive. I know this
because after the icon goes away the light on the disc drive is flasing,
indicating that something is still going on with it. Presumably a
sync() operation.

I've encountered this problem with GNOME, and I'm fairly certain that it's a GNOME issue, not a Linux issue. GNOME doesn't wait for the umount operation to be completed before removing the icon from the desktop.

If you want to be certain all your data's safely been written to your drive, pop open an xterm (or gnome-terminal, or konsole), and type:

$ sync

Once your prompt reappears, all your data has been written, and you can safely remove the drive.

P.S. While I describe it as a GNOME issue, I wouldn't be surprised if the issue also existed in KDE and other desktop environments.


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