Re: Soft ejects

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Fish" == Fish Smith <dyson_sphere_explorer@yahoo.com> writes:

    >> It is not only newbies that can make stupid mistakes, and
    >> remove a floppy disk that is currently mounted...

    Fish> I was taught in kindergarten /never/ to remove a disk when
    Fish> the light was on, and I never do it.  Removing while it is
    Fish> mounted but not currently being read or written isn't very
    Fish> damaging--you just get an error message, have to unmount and
    Fish> remount.

This seems to have changed since a last checked it.

Previously, when the disk is mounted, and you have made changes to the
disk, then those changes will be cached inside the kernel (including
updates to the FAT and directory entries). (I think something must be
written immediately, or this disk wouldn't be currupted). If you
remove the disk before the kernel gets a chance to complete these
updates, the kernel will realize the disk has changed and flush its
buffers, and you end up with a currupted disk.  Even if you remember 1
second after removing the disk, it was still 1 second too late. At
least, that was been my experience. There wont be any warnings that
the disk is currupted either, unless you check it with a filesystem
checker.

However, I see you are now correct. Now data is written to the disk
almost immediately (1 second delay) after it is dirty. This means the
developers have put the safety of the disk ahead of performance
issues...

I don't know about the error message that forces you to remount
the disk - I never got that myself.
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>