A little time ago I unplugged a USB Extension Drive without thinking. The Suse system indicated that my back-up had finished but I had not unmounted the drive, despite knowing that I should never do this. The back-up disc would not mount any more and despite all attempts to find an answer, I was told that linux does not have an answer and I could only try "scan disk" on a Windows computer. This worked. Is this really the only answer and if so why is there no mechanism for such forgetfulness in linux?

Terry Moore

Actually, you got lucky. It is perfectly possibly to render a USB device totally unusable my ANY system by such simple carlessness. It is not your fault, but a flaw in the basic design that is difficult to remedy cheaply.

That there is a tool available for Windows to fix such issues (When you are lucky!) should not suprise anyone. Corruption is far easier to create under windows, so dealing with it was a higher priority in that environment. Since it is less common under Linux, it is a lower priority. Despite this, tools do exist and are getting better. When this happens the thrid time to one of the major developers we may see sudden improvment.

I would consider it a learning experience.
I have taken to mounting storage over network rather than local USB. The reasons were matters ov convenience for me, but a side effect was to avoid this problem.

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Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

Windows disables write caching for external drives by default so forgetting to safely remove is typically not a problem. linux does not so if there is still unwritten data when the drive is unplugged file corruption is possible. linux does not have a true chkdsk tool for NTFS so the drive has to be repaired using Windows. Using the sync option to mount the external drive will disable write caching but is not recommended with the ntfs-3g driver since it will slow the system down considerbly.

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There is ntfsfix from ntfs-3g. But, as stated, not an actual chkdsk.

Probable solution is using sync mount option which reduces error much. And disable device write-caching using hdparm and/or sdparm.