Re: USB2 Ports - SORTED!

Bitstring <9cvgn4p12vns1ski6fbim09rn4lc34j8ij@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, from the wonderful person Jaimie Vandenbergh <jaimie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said
On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:53:10 +0000, Terry Pinnell
<terrypin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Another factor that I should mention is that I'm pretty sure I now
have an icon in my tray that I don't recall seeing for many months:
the 'Safely Remove Hardware' thing. What's the story on that please?

It should have been there - it pops up so that you can choose to eject
USB storage (and network, and maybe other) devices safely, without
risking other processes getting stuck with a surprise "Device gone!"
error and failing to handle it gracefully.

Is it (or should it) always be present? Must it be followed? I recall
ignoring it ages ago without any apparent repercussions. IOW, removing
devices without using it. But maybe I'm now paying for my sins?

It's nothing to do with the current trouble. Just reinstall the
drivers.

You *should* use it before yanking out a USB storage device, otherwise
you're running a gauntlet each time risking filesystem corruption.
It's a small risk, Windows does try to guard against it by committing
writes immediately to USB devices rather than cachine, but it's still
a risk that will bite you eventually.

Immediate write ('optimise for fast removal') is the default for most windows disks, but you can 'optimise for fast writing' I believe (where writes are cached, and windows claims to have finished long before it really has, especially with slow devices).

You can usually tell because the data Xfer lights will stop flickering when writing is complete, and even with cached write Windows will normally start writing, and keep writing, ASAP .. it just lies about when it has finished (and any read backs get the cached on the PC version).

Pulling a plug mid-write is definitely Russian Roulette.

--
GSV Three Minds in a Can
13,113 Km walked. 2,500 Km PROWs surveyed. 45.1% complete.
.

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