External USB hard drive: quick question
 

Hello, everyone. I've converted my IDE old hard drive into an external USB drive. Works like a charm under Mandrake 9.2 (I just love CompUSA's cheap roll-your-own gear), and now I'm wondering about using my USB port for other stuff.

Do I simply umount the partitions on that drive and unplug it when I want to use something else, or is the procedure more involved? If it is just a matter of umount, then will the mount command bring everything back when I plug it back in?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated; my apologies if this has been specifically addressed before (after all, there are a lot of threads with 'USB' and 'hard drive' in them...)

Many thanks in advance.

If you were going to unplug the drive unmount it first, or you could get data corruption. What I would probably recommend is a USB hub so you can leave the HD connected and still connect other devices. USB ports can handle more then one device at a time.

Ironic that you mention a USB hub-- I've got one that I plan on trying to use.

Will the use of a hub complicate matters? Specifically: my machine has only 2 USB ports; the printer is on one, the external hard drive is on the other. If I wanted to, say, plug the hub into the port presently used by the printer, would Mandrake know where to find the printer again? Should it be uninstalled and then reinstalled? Or is Mandrake slick enough to dynamically detect and compensate for the changes? I'm having a heck of a time finding clear (to me) information on the use of hubs under Linux.

Sorry to be so dense, but I'm still learning. ;) Thanks again.

Yes, you should be able to unplug and plug any device into any USB port or hub (Drives should be umounted first). I've seen a post where a device was only recognized using one particular port but this isn't the norm.

Michaelk is right, unless the device manufacturer didn't implement his USB interface correctly there should be no problem at all. USB was designed to allow device chaining on a single port so they don't have to put 8 USB ports on a machine to ensure you have enough.

The problem i would beware of in this case is too many devices on one USB hub. They tend to turn other devices off in order to supply power to one of higher priority. A friend of mine has one and every time he goes to hotsync his palm through the hub it kills his mouse because, but his external cdrom still works. That would be the only problem i could for-see. If it turns your hard drive off while another device is working then you could get some data corruption. I would plug the hard drive in directly rather than through the hub....just to make sure. Better safe than sorry in my opinion!

Thanks so much for the help, guys. The USB drive has a dedicated port now, Mandrake still sees the printer, and everything I've so far plugged into the hub works great.

Noobs like me really benefit from this community's supportive attitude. Thanks again.