Safely Remove Usb?


JakeK

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Heya,

Just wondering, does the safely remove option on Windows make any other peoples F200's freeze on the 'USB is connected to the PC' screen?

Is removing the USB cable from the F200 (when still connected to the PC while not transferring anything) harmful to the F200?
 
What version of windows?

Edit: Disconnecting a USB device from your PC shouldn't hurt your PC, assuming you are running Win2k or newer.

For Win2k, the safely remove dialog pops up, because it caches all the write commands. You have to eject the SD card to force it to write to it.

For Linux, sync is equivalent. ;)

For WinXP, default caching behaviour is different from install to install. I believe for most people it avoids caching the writes, and instead just writes them. In theory disconnecting without ejecting should be fine - but you can test it fairly easily for your own computer.

Delete one file off the SD, and copy over another. Now unplug it. A few seconds later, plug it back in. Did the one file get deleted, and the other copied? If yes, then you can safely(to your PC) unplug your GP2X at most times.

No experience with Vista.
 
PlopperZ said:
I don't know about the GP2X, but I remember corrupting a couple of pen drives doing that.
Yes, I corrupted the FAT32 filesystem on one of my USB sticks by pulling it out while it was writing.

Didn't do anything to my PC, though. :lol:
 
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JakeK said:
Just wondering, does the safely remove option on Windows make any other peoples F200's freeze on the 'USB is connected to the PC' screen?
Yes, it freezes on mine as well, but it all depends on how I unplug it. If I unplugged the USB on the GP2X side first, the screen would go back to the menu, but if I unplugged the USB on the PC side, it would be stuck like that.
JakeK said:
Is removing the USB cable from the F200 (when still connected to the PC while not transferring anything) harmful to the F200?
You could unplug it without safely removing the device first, but the problem would occur if data is being accessed or especially when data is being written. It could result into the corruption or loss of data. It might also cause other problems like instability on the GP2X and the PC. By safely removing it first, it would ensure you that the device is not being accessed and can be unplugged safely. It is better to be safe than sorry. :p
 
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I tested something just then, you see what happens is that when I safely remove my F200 on Windows XP SP2 and pull the plug on the F200 end the screen remains in the connected state.

I think that removing wthout doing it safely is recking my SD card. I had to reformat it the other day because it was reading specific files correctly.
 
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