safely remove USB hard drive

[g]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

in reply to replies,

i started in computers in early 60's with punch card, later to main frames and
minis, then to micros with s100 in 70's.

in s100, i started with cdos, cromemco's z80 enhanced version of cpm, then to
cromix, a version of bsd.

thru all of this, i have learned one thing, cyoa, cover your own ass.

during early days, when ever i had need to unmount a disk, i first use sync
several times to flush buffers.

later years, yes, sync was supposed to be automatic. but, that is *supposed
to be automatic*, but not a guarantee and i still use sync to insure that
buffers are flushed.

my last affairs with unix were svr4 and in manuals, use of sync is recommended
to insure that buffers are flushed.

now in linux, i usually still use sync. on just one occasion, i was in a hurry
and did not flush buffers before unmounting and lost data. it was not a
problem, because i was doing multi floppy backups. being that just one time i
had a problem, did not mean that i would again, or would not again.

now, joe smith's question was;
} When I want to remove the drive, what's the simplest way to be sure that all
} cached data is written/cleared, so that I can safely remove the drive?

therefore, i stand with my original statement, 'man sync'.

if those of you who claim to not have had problems wish to chance losing data,
go ahead and 'eject', 'umount' or what ever. it is your data that you are
chancing loss of.

it is not really that great a point to carry on about.

be safe or be sorry. your choice.


- --

tc,hago.

g
.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mandriva - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFID3fKQCGYa6nWX2MRAm1BAKCMAssG/Cv1v7llHQ9Wb9HWTJO1ywCfXazk
oCOqOa1ioymZ0jWMpv0DlHM=
=KqE+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----