External hard drives are connected to USB connectors. Similar to USB sticks, they require a safe shutdown. Otherwise, the safety of the data on the disk, as well as the device itself, is not guaranteed.
Instructions
Step 1
Quit all applications accessing the removable hard drive. Wait until all calls to it stop (the LED on the device should stop blinking).
Step 2
If you are using a Windows operating system, look for the green arrow sounding icon in the lower right corner of the taskbar. Double click on it and a list of devices connected to the USB interface will appear. Find the removable hard drive in this list, select it, and then click the "Stop" button. Wait for the notification that the device can now be safely disconnected. Do not stop by mistake another USB device, such as a Bluetooth dongle, GPRS or 3G modem, printer.
Step 3
There are two ways to stop the external hard drive in Linux. To use the first of them, find the icon corresponding to this device right on the desktop, and then right-click on it. In the context menu that appears, select the "Disable" item or similar. After that, call the context menu again with the right mouse button, and then select the "Extract" item in it.
Step 4
To disconnect the external hard drive in the second way, open a console and run the su command. Enter the root password. Start the Midnight Commander file manager with the mc directive. Go to the mnt folder located in the root folder. If you can't find your external hard drive in it, try looking for it in the media folder, also located in the root folder.
Step 5
Enter the umount command with an argument of the name of the external hard drive, for example umount sda1. Wait until the LED on it stops blinking - it should go out or light up constantly. Then enter the eject command with the same argument, for example eject sda1. Now the LED should go out, even if it was on before, and the motor in the removable hard disk should stop.
Step 6
Now unplug your external hard drive. If it connects to two USB ports at once, disconnect the plugs from both. If it has an external power supply, first unplug the latter from the wall outlet and only then disconnect the drive from the USB port of the computer.
Step 7
It happens that an external drive is busy with an application that cannot be closed. This, in turn, makes it impossible to stop the device. Then, to safely disconnect it, shut down the OS and wait until the computer turns off.
