Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Hi everyone,

I'm sure everyone has thought and do think about this with their flash drives and 'phones'...

Do you play it safe "safely remove hardware", and "stop" your mass storage device from the laptop/desktop computer? Or do you go wild and rip the usb cable out to your hearts desire?

What are the risks, if any?

P.S. Don't be afraid to admit if you don't eject safely. You won't lose any nerd points, at least in my eyes you won't...

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

depends with my external 1T harddrive i safely remove with a n900 i safely remove but flash drives can be a bit hit and miss sometimes i do sometimes i dont
not too sure on the risks but i think it can corrupt or delete the data on the device

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I'm not a fan of corrupted file-systems.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

i play it safe as i dnt want a fooked up system

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

It happened to me ONE time, a couple of years ago, I just ripped a little 8gb usb stick, and it corrupted all my data in it. I would plug it in many computer, including Windows and Linux, and the drive wouldn't read. Windows would see it in My Computer but couldn't open, I don't remember the error message it prompted, but it suggested that the drive be formatted. So I did, lost all my data (which was only media, so not important) and was able to re-use it afterwards. But yea, that only happen ONCE in my lifetime, lol. But still, with a device as expensive as my N900 as well as my 64gb Kingston USB stick, I both just safely remove them both. After all, it takes only about 3 seconds longer.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

i never do it ..... never messed anything up .... fingers crossed!

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I am playing it safe for long time. Never had problems with memory corruption but several times couldn't mount devices on USB port where I didn't play it safe. And usually those problems were happening when I *had to use* this specific port for something...

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I do it always and I recommend to everyone to do it especially on FAT/FAT32 filesystems wich are easily corruptable.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

i never do it. have had some issues with extra ports for media cards in my hp printer where it zapped my card rndering it useless.

i back up data on my cards usually at least one time a week or so.

i have never had that problem with an interated reader on the pc.

i would just be sure that there is no current going through the card when you pull it out. ge sure the window that shows it available or its content is closed and wait 1 or 2 seconds and it should be fine.

my understanding as to why it corrupts the file is that there is still current going through the card and in effect...implodes causing damage.

if someone else could give a better explaination or second the motion then great.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I always safely eject all mass storage medias, why corrupt file system just because is too lazy or busy?

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

My Thinkpad came with a program called the EasyEject Utility that makes the "safely remove hardware" step much faster and more convenient, so I use it. Prior to that, I lived dangerously.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

well, usually I safely eject the devices I use.
though if it says it cant unmount it I just take it out.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I always try to safely eject hardware, but, as it's under discussion, my n900 sometimes refuses to eject, windows says its in use, when it's blatently not.

Even after waiting 5 mins of doing nothing I sometimes have to just unplug, anyone else experienced this?

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I voted lol coz there is a cattle prod with the name of anyone who would dare touch my kit without written permission!

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

With FAT, it should be safe to pull as long as there are no write operations in progress. Keep in mind, just because there isn't a dialog telling you something is going on, there could still be something in the background you aren't aware of (such as cached writes). Ejecting syncs any pending operations to disk before letting you know it's safe. Also, some file systems don't take well to not being unmounted (they assume it means something bad happened). Personally, I play it safe and eject - I can spare a few seconds to save a few hours of recovery.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Never do. Not had any regrets over it yet, either.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

On Windows (in write through mode, the default) the only thing safely remove does is ensure you don't have any application reading or writing to the device (which would mean you'd lose data).

Most other operating systems use some sort of write caching, which means that you lose information every time you eject it without unmounting first.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

So you claim that as long as you aren't transferring any files on or off the storage device, you could physically take it out and it'd be the same thing as 'eject'ing?

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

If you can be sure that NO APPLICATION is transferring files, and Windows continues to keep write through as default for external media (XP does, don't have Vista) then yes. But of course, the "no application" part is hard for you to know.

(Note that I still suggest using safely remove, because it's good practice and will allow MS to one day allow write caching for removable media, which is a good thing to do)

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

I've noticed that Windows (never had this issue with *nix) systems often steadfastly refuse to unmount removable media. Usually I unmount the drive, but when that happens I remove the drive without unmounting. I think some application blocks unmounting, probably explorer. I'll have to see if crashing explorer.exe first lets me unmount next time.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Yeah I have that problem when I plug my N900 into my school computers sometimes. I wonder if there's any app you can install on the FAT storage to identify what's holding it up. I dunno if unlocker does that.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

As an old-time Unix file system developer, I would advis you to always safely eject. Pulling power off a device while it is being written to is almost always painful if not fatal.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

my Mac tells me to do it, I submissively obey.

this device is too expensive for me to afford anything happening to it.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

The title of this thread is full of win. Congratulations to the OP!

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Good to see another Mac user ;)

However: you can rest assured that the mac will never tell you to remove a device unless you have requested to first eject it or during an admin task such as a software update. Fact is, you can pull a device from the Mac anytime you want.

You can also rest assured that if you do happen to pull a device (from the USB port for example) wihout first ejecting it, your Mac will NOT be damaged. There are circuit protectors in place to protect from this. But that's not sayng your device may survive.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Epic win! I made that lol option just for you :)

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

So mac is fine, device might not be?

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

For those that sometime can't remount device on windows, you should try unlocker. Very usefull app for unmount drives/suppress in-use files :)

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

yep I think that's probably what he's saying, it's all about risk, I don't know the probability rate of this happening but something might go wrong and you lose some/all data, with my mac ejecting is a matter of adding a couple of seconds which really isn't much, so...I just always do it. :)

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Thanks.

Edit: BUMPed again, more votes!!

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Sorry for late reply.
Yes that's right. Mac will get miffed and will tell you about it. But it will happily chug along without problems. As for your device? Well, all bets are off on what the outcome will be.

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Tap the flash drive 5 times. Stand up sit down and recite please dont mess up 10 times and spin around.
Its the only safe way.. :)

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

i have all the best intentions of being safe, but in the heat of the moment i get carried away, forget everything my mother told me about protecting my file system, and with an air of giddy hedonism i whip it out with gay abandon...

...and as soon as its over i start to worry... :S

Re: Friends don't let friends pull it out prematurely (Safely remove hardware : to eject or not to eject?) Poll
 

Hi my first post as i'm new. Can't help but throw in my opinion here. Having had to recover data in the past and play with various external devices both on Linux and windows I've some experience of these issues. Only once a file system corrupted -i put it down to dodgy hardware(a usb drive). When ejecting/unmounting correctly i believe it sets a flag to identify it as ok. Often if just yanked out and plugging into a different OS it will be seen as locked/broken and not allow access. Cant say I've tried this recently as I'm all single OS these days. Hope thats of any use.