Different bevahiour by USB falsh drives formatted in ext3/4 and Windows' formats

[Dave Woyciesjes]

Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 06/10/2010 07:31, Dave Woyciesjes wrote:
>> Basil Chupin wrote:
>>    
>>> I noticed this for a while but after doing this today to confirm my
>>> observations, I thought I would mention this because there was some
>>> discussion recently about how to properly remove an USB flash disc from
>>> Ubuntu (at least 10.04 which I am now using). The same applies, BTW, to
>>> an external USB HD.
>>>
>>> When the device is plugged in, or switched on in the case of the HD, the
>>> appropriate icon appears on the workspace (desktop) and nautilus runs
>>> and shows the contents of the device. All normal. In nautilus the device
>>> shows up in the left-hand-most panel with a pyramid-looking "up pointer"
>>> at the end of the device name.
>>>
>>> However, as you know, when it comes to 'disconnecting' such a device,
>>> one has to "Safely remove" the device and not simply "Eject" it or just
>>> pull it out of the connection on the computer (or switch off the
>>> external USB HD).
>>>
>>> If the device is formatted in ext3/4 then you can right-click on the
>>> *icon on the workspace* and select "Safely remove" - and watch the light
>>> on the flash disc or the HD if you want to ensure that any unwritten
>>> data has been written to the device and the device can then be "removed"
>>> from the system.
>>>
>>> However, if the device has been formatted in FAT/ntfs then using the
>>> above method results in an error message stating that the device cannot
>>> be accessed (or some such - I'm working from memory). What you need to
>>> do is to either go to Places>(device) which will start nautilus or to
>>> nautilus itself and use the "up pointer" at the end of the device name
>>> to Safely Remove the device.
>>>
>>>      
>> 	Sorry to burst your bubble, Basil, but all of my FAT32 USB drive, and
>> the 2 partition FAT32/NTFS USB HDD all have the Safely Remove option;
>> which works correctly. On Ubuntu 10.4...
>> 	Maybe you standing on your head?
>>    
> 
> A follow-up to my earlier response, here is a screenshot of the error 
> message when one tries to Safely Remove an USB formatted in FAT:
> 
> http://picpaste.com/fat_usb-D5gjWQLK.png
> 

	Hmmm, yep. You got problems. But unfortunately, I know not where you 
should start.

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--- Dave Woyciesjes
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