In the case of a CD, Linux will actually disable the eject button on the CDROM drive so you can not eject the disk without unmounting it first. With devices that rely on plug friction to remain attached (ie, USB and Firewire devices) you can just yank their plugs out. This can cause problems with your OS or the data stored on those devices if you do not tell the OS to stop/unmount/eject them before yanking. This is only relevant to USB storage devices. Other USB devices like printers and scanners can generally be plugged and unplugged at will as long as they are not "in use". Ie, don't yank the cable out while scanning an image or printing a photo. Doing so could cause weirdness. Regards On Tue, 2004-12-21 at 18:52 +1300, Jamie Curtis wrote:
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Judy & Lindsay Roberts wrote:
So, does this mean, that if it is plugged in after Linux has loaded, it will be unmounted and need to be mounted so that data can be saved to it?
No, you have it around the wrong way. When you want to access a new disk (such as a CD, or USB key) you have to mount the new drive. This is often automatically done by many new distributions when you plug in a USB key or insert a CD.
When you have finished with a device, you need to unmount it before removing it. This is kinda equlivent to "Start Stop Hardware" that you get in Windows. Again, some modern distro's are setup in such a way as to protect you if you remove a drive before unmounting it. Unfortunatly this is all very distribution dependent, so you should probably tell us what you are using, then someone who also runs that can give you specific help.
Cheers,
Jamie
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