How to shutdown a USB device (pen drive) from a console?

aurium · 09-26-2010, 02:06 PM

The umount command sync and release the USB device (pen drive or external HD) from the filesystem, but does not shutdown it, like Nautilus does with the safe remove. How can i properly shutdown it from the command line?

fuubar2003 · 09-26-2010, 02:11 PM

'umount' will report the device is busy if something is still accessing the device. Just execute 'umount /<mountpoint>'. If you want to be even more thorough, execute:
# sync;sync;umount <mountpoint>

...where mountpoint is the full directory path where it is mounted.

aurium · 09-26-2010, 04:39 PM

umount and sync are obvious and well knowed. thanks. ;-)

After the umount some usb devices still "on" with a lighting let and listed on the file browsers. For some devices is more secure to turn it "off" before remove from the USB slot. With this care the device life will be longer. By that you can see "umount" and "safe remove" on Nautilus and some other file browsers.

So... how to shutdown a USB device by the commandline?

jschiwal · 09-26-2010, 05:02 PM

You might want to look at ivman. It makes mounting removable devices easier from the console. ( and you may already have it installed ) You can use "halmount -e <device|mount point|label name>" to eject a device. You will need to cd out of a directory on the device before you can eject it.

For large pen drives (8 GB & greater) the light will remain lit after ejecting. It will dim & brighten about once a second. This will also be true for Macs as well.

tredegar · 09-27-2010, 04:26 AM

If you want to unmount and power-down the device, try the command eject /dev/whatever

jefro · 09-27-2010, 04:00 PM

I'd simply unmount it and remove it.

I can't find it but isn't there usbtools or some package like that with all the command line tools?

binu1208 · 10-01-2010, 08:05 AM

Please do this

Login to Root
#fdisk -l - To find the mount point and the device name
#umount /dev/device name

eg:#umount /dev/sda1

aurium · 10-02-2010, 06:33 AM

binu1208, again... umount is obvious.

You must to read the question and read the previews conversation before answer.

Que question is not about to remove from the file system, is about to shutdown a device!