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Thread ID: 102365	2009-08-17 03:30:00	How do you "Safely Remove" an e-Sata External HDD?	vims213 (15007)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
801818	2009-08-17 04:30:00	Well you cant eject it / safely remove it then What wratterus told me that when it is esata, there is no need to safely remove. I would anyway but unfortunately there isn't any safely remove on my taskbar or when I right click on the external hdd on "my computer" Are there other options?	vims213 (15007)
801819	2009-08-17 04:38:00	No - read the replies! :o You've been told at least 3 times by Speedy and myself that it is safe as houses to just unplug without safely removing.	wratterus (105)
801820	2009-08-17 05:10:00	No - read the replies! :o You've been told at least 3 times by Speedy and myself that it is safe as houses to just unplug without safely removing. Sorry to burst your bubble Wratterus, but it's not. For all intents and purposes, an eSATA device is exactly the same as an internal SATA one, just with a different plug. While the SATA standard does allow for hotplugging, Windows does not always support this functionality properly, and treats the drive as if it was just another internal one. As a result, the 'safely remove' option is not available. While 'just unplugging' the device is fine from a hardware perspective, doing so while there is unflushed data in the write buffer will result in data loss. If you're using the FAT32 filesystem, doing this at the wrong time can hose the entire filesystem. NTFS is substantially more robust, but can still be damaged. The short explanation is that from a software perspective, unplugging an eSATA drive without doing a 'safe removal' is *exactly* the same as removing a USB drive without doing a safe removal, and has exactly the same implications as regards data loss. The only way to guarantee data integrity when the safe removal option is unavailable is to completely shut down (*not* hibernate / stand by etc) the system before unplugging the drive.	Erayd (23)
801821	2009-08-17 05:23:00	Sorry - my earlier comment did not really come out as intended. I should have said it's as safe as removing a USB device, as long as no data is being transferred at the time.	wratterus (105)
801822	2009-08-17 08:35:00	No problem wratterus. :-) Thank you to Erayd for clarifying. :thanks	vims213 (15007)
801823	2009-08-18 02:55:00	a trick I do when I want to remove an internal storage drive but also want to hibernate the host OS drive as well, I use device manager to "uninstall" the drive I want to remove, then I hibernate Upon resuming from hibernate, I do not get any errors (since the drive was uninstalled and thus the filesystem was not mounted)	Agent_24 (57)
801824	2009-08-18 06:37:00	That works too - nice idea Agent_24 :thumbs:.	Erayd (23)
801825	2009-08-18 09:42:00	a trick I do when I want to remove an internal storage drive but also want to hibernate the host OS drive as well, I use device manager to "uninstall" the drive I want to remove, then I hibernate Upon resuming from hibernate, I do not get any errors (since the drive was uninstalled and thus the filesystem was not mounted) Would it work if you disabled it also? I have been looking around to see if you can create a shortcut to enable/disable devices using device manager....do you have a way or do you go in manualyl and do it:p?	Blam (54)
801826	2009-08-18 10:06:00	The only way to guarantee data integrity when the safe removal option is unavailable is to completely shut down (*not* hibernate / stand by etc) the system before unplugging the drive. In device manager, you can set policies for HDs and disable write caching. IIRC SATA and IDE HDs have it enabled by default, while for USB devices it is disabled.	Blam (54)
801827	2009-08-18 11:07:00	In device manager, you can set policies for HDs and disable write caching. IIRC SATA and IDE HDs have it enabled by default, while for USB devices it is disabled.That still doesn't get around the problem, although it helps. It just reduces the probability of unplugging it at the wrong time, and slows the drive down something chronic. Yes, disabling the drive first will also cause it to unmount.	Erayd (23)
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