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I have recently installed Linux Mint on an old laptop. I wasn't a Linux user before. Using MS Windows, I have developed a bad habit of unplugging the external hard drive without ever safely removing it.

While on Mint, I renamed a bunch of files and moved others to different directories then I unplugged the hard disk without remembering to eject. When I plugged the hard disk back, I found that only changed directory names remained changed. Renamed and moved files were back to their original folder with their unchanged names. The HDD is formatted as NTFS. I use two OS's now and the habits of Windows are proving hard to kick.

Is there a setting I can change to make the external HD 'hot pluggable' as in Windows?

mount output:

/dev/sda1 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=0620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755)
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,user=joe)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/joe/HD-EG5 type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096)
dhag
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1 Answers1

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You could mount your hot-pluggable file systems sync. The following U+L question gives a few more details: Difference between 'sync' and 'async' mount options.

(Note however a possibly serious drawback highlighted by Gilles in a comment in this SU answer from 2010: Should I unmount a USB drive before unplugging it?; this could be bad, at least on FAT filesystems, and be unbearably slow as well.)

Essentially, writes to a file system mounted sync are actually committed to disk as soon as possible; the writing process will be made to wait until the write is complete before returning. While this doesn't completely simulate the Windows behavior (unplugging a mounted drive will still cause it to be marked dirty, possibly requiring a fsck at remount), it will make it much less likely that an accidental unplug causes data loss.

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dhag
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  • Thanks for your help. I've read the link and unfortunately I know very little about mounting/unmounting drives. I also know very little about the Linux terminal. Mint automatically mounts the drive when I plug it in. I will leave this unanswered in case someone has something else to share. – Joe Apr 30 '15 at 19:58
  • Oh, OK; then one would have to track down the code that automounts your drive and change the parameters to add `-o sync`. I would have thought this would be the default for external drives... Perhaps you can print the output of `mount` (the line relevant to your file external drive) and add it to your question? – dhag Apr 30 '15 at 20:02
  • I've added the mount output. THe last line has the harddisk name on it so I think that is what you are looking for. – Joe Apr 30 '15 at 20:14
  • @dhag It isn't the default because it's extremely slow, and it can kill flash media pretty fast. http://superuser.com/questions/180722/should-i-unmount-a-usb-drive-before-unplugging-it/180732#180732 – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Apr 30 '15 at 22:37
  • Alright. Thanks for your help. I guess the answer is to always safely remove. – Joe May 01 '15 at 06:10
  • @Joe: thanks for accepting the answer, although, in light of Gilles' contribution, it seems rather wrong-headed now... I'll eventually edit it into something more sensible. – dhag May 01 '15 at 13:55