[ubuntu-uk] What to do if external hard drive isn't unmounted properly?

[Liam Proven]

On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 18 May 2010 15:41, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Rowan Berkeley
>> <rowan.berkeley at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2010-05-18 at 09:11 +0100, Avi Greenbury
>>> <avismailinglistaccount at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Rowan Berkeley wrote:
>>>> > It's NTFS. I originally put all the stuff on it from a Windows
>>>> > machine, which uses NTFS by default. I have experienced no problems
>>>> > in using it on the newer Ubuntu machine. But once, I did power down
>>>> > without unmounting it, and the next time I started it, it
>>>> > complained of an 'unclean demount'. The way I got out of it then was
>>>> > by putting it back on the Windows machine and closing it down from
>>>> > there, but I don't want to have to do that in future, as I may not
>>>> > have a Windows machine to do it on.
>>>>
>>>> In that case, you'll want to be using a Linux native filesystem, for
>>>> which repair tools exist in Linux. Ext3 or ext4 are likely a good bet,
>>>> others may be more appropriate depending on what you intend to store
>>>> on it and how you intend to access it. NTFS is a good option if you've
>>>> a Windows PC for it to interact with. If there's no Windows about,
>>>> life tends to be easier if you stick with Linux native filesystems.
>>>> Unfortunately, there's no way to convert it, you'll be looking at
>>>> copying files elsewhere to convert it, unless it's less than half
>>>> full. Avi Greenbury
>>>
>>> Aha, well, as it happens, it is less than half full. So I take it that
>>> there is some procedure whereby I can create new and more
>>> Ubuntu-friendly partitions on it alongside the NTFS ones and then move
>>> all the files into them and finally delete the NTFS partitions? This
>>> might take a while, but it would be worth doing if in future handling
>>> the drive on Ubuntu machines will be much easier. It's a 500GB drive and
>>> I have only 125GB in use currently. So please tell me where to go for
>>> instructions on this. I'm glad I asked, now. Thanks, Avi.
>>
>> Easy. Using Gparted, shrink the NTFS partition to half the drive. (Say).
>>
>> Make a new extended partition. In there make a logical drive. Format it ext3.
>>
>> Mount both.
>>
>> Move all the stuff from the NTFS partition to the ext3 partition.
>>
>> When the NTFS partition is empty, unmount both. Use Gparted to remove
>> the NTFS partition. Expand the ext3 partition to fill the drive.
>
> Don't forget to back it up first.
>
> Colin

Good point, well made. :¬)

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