Auto-Mounting and Unmounting CDs, DVDs, USB drives etc.

Guy Fraser guy at incentre.net
Fri Dec 3 16:14:28 UTC 2004



Robin Laing wrote:

> fedora-list at webterminate.com wrote:
>
>> Dear Fedora List,
>>
>> If the above procedure is in fact the standard behaviour of FC3 
>> anyway, I guess my setup is to blame. Then I'd ask you to give me 
>> some indication of what FC3's default setup for handling CDs is. Is 
>> am-utils installed? Is autofs installed?
>>
>> Sorry for the rant. I'm simply quite frustrated.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Florian
>>
>
> Windows does it wrong.  :)
>
> I cannot think of the number of screwed up floppies I have had in my 
> Windows days.  Even a few screwed up CDr's in XP because of a pause 
> while writing and I removed the CD.  Oops.  I am so glad I toasted my XP.
>
> A simple demonstration is with a USB stick.  Even on Windows, a USB 
> stick needs to be "unmounted".  This is the same idea.  Explain this 
> to them as the default method of ensuring data and filesystem or 
> programs don't get corrupted data.
>
> Of course a CD or DVD is normally read only but it isn't the best 
> option.  The one suggestion using auto.fs is a great idea.  I will 
> have to try it at home.  Removing a CD or DVD while it is being used 
> may crash another program or corrupt data reads.
>
Actually not just USB sticks, but USB drives and Firewire drives as well.

I just got a Firewire/USB2 external case and hooked it up last night. 
Seconds after I plugged it in,
an Icon popped up on the desktop, right clicking on the icon gives an 
option to unmount. I moved
a bunch of files off the external drive, unmounted it then repartitioned 
and formatted it, and when
I unplugged it then plugged it back in, the icon came back with the new 
label I assigned to the
file system.

I will try using USB this weekend, but from what I can tell there have 
been major improvements
with support for external drives and removable media in FC3.

On the same note as this thread, I used to show off Linux and Solaris by 
using "eject -t <device>"
I could close the drive from the keyboard, many people thought that was 
way too cool.

On Mac's they actually hide the eject button on the cd/dvd drives, so you
are forced to put the cdrom icon in the trash to eject the disc.

The other problem that is risked by not "locking" the cd tray is that if 
the drive is spinning and you
poke the eject button you will almost certainly get radial scratches on 
your cd, and we all know
they are the worst kind of scratch on cd/dvd media. I have actually seen 
cd media damaged by a
windows machines from someone poking the eject button while copying 
files off a cd.

-- 
Guy Fraser





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