WD My book hard disk is not turned off when unmounting

[Psykotik]

I'm on Ubuntu 8.04

The unmount of the "Western Digital My book" (1 To, "Essential edition" in my case) doesn't shut down it as expected.

Here are the specifications:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=353

When unmounting on Windows (XP), the hd shuts down itself. It is not needed to unplug the device. However, on Ubuntu, the unmount doesn't turn it off : it unmounts, but the light showing the device is on use stays turned on.

That's quite an issue, as this external hard disk doesn't have any kind of manul switch; I have to manually unplug it.

[Psykotik (linux-ikiru)]

As proposed on ubuntuforums

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=451344&page=6

I used sdparm to spin off :

   gksudo sdparm --command=sync /dev/sdb1
   gksudo sdparm --command=stop /dev/sdb1

(where sdb1 is my external HD)

Nothing happened.

[mathieu berthelot (m-berthelot)]

Same problem with a WD1600U017 (http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=201&lang=en)

[toufalk (toufalk)]

Same problem with my "Western Digital passeport":
http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=391

When I unmount it, it doesn't stop spinning. I have to stop it manually:
    grep -H Western /sys/bus/usb/devices/usb?/?-?/manufacturer
to find the good usb port,
    cd /sys/bus/usb/devices/usbX/X-Y/power
to do in the good directory (X and Y are given by the grep) and finally
    sudo sh -c 'echo "suspend" > level'
to shut it down.

[Shane Par-Due (shanepardue)]

Would like to see an alternative to unmounting and unplugging this thing while it's still spinning by default. Using sdparm in the meantime.

[david (david-d)]

This is really annoying. Unmounting is one problem shutdown the other!
I have to manually unplug it to shut it down thats really annoying!!!

[Mediaklan (didli)]

Same problem here. But with another one in top of that :
"When unmounting on Windows (XP), the hd shuts down itself" ... and is normally also able to turn on as XP starts. Problem is : as Ubuntu is starting (after Grub choice) the hdd seems to have enter some kind of sleep mode, so ubuntu failed to launch (console explaining that it was not able to mount the hdd). Taping "exit" and everythings runs fine then but it is definitively annoying...

[Yan Li (yanli)]

I've a little script that properly put an USB device into suspend mode for safe disconnect, those who are brave could try it. It's very simple so you can review it before running it on your system. You should be root or use sudo to run it.

Download URL: http://github.com/liyan/suspend-usb-device/raw/master/suspend-usb-device
The GIT repo for developers: http://github.com/liyan/suspend-usb-device/tree/master

And my idea on this problem: http://elliotli.blogspot.com/2009/01/safely-remove-usb-hard-drive-in-linux.html

[cosmix (cosm7x)]

This bug persists on Ubuntu 9.04.

[monkey (monkey186)]

This seems to be the same as the problem reported in Bug #117713 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/117713) - the absence of some eject mechanism to properly spin down external hard drives.

[liorda (liorda)]

This is still occurring with my "WD My Book Essential edition" (the WDG1Uxxxx models). Very annoying.

[FiNeX (finex)]

The same problem exists with My Book Studio Edition.

[FiNeX (finex)]

The script on http://elliotli.blogspot.com/2009/01/safely-remove-usb-hard-drive-in-linux.html works fine on ArchLinux, I've not tested on Ubuntu 9.04 which now works fine. Ubuntu 9.04 correctly shut down the WD My Book Studio Edition

[ssergeje (ssergeje)]

Please refer to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/117713/comments/49 for temporary (hopefully) solution to unmount and spin down external drive

[liorda (liorda)]

this is no longer problem for me. mybook essential and Kermic. should be closed?

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Psykotik, thank you for reporting this and helping make Ubuntu better. Hardy desktop reached EOL on May 12, 2011.
Please see this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We were wondering if this is still an issue on a supported release? If so, can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command in a supported release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]