Can't unmount or delete

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Okay, okay, so I read the partitioner warning “Do not proceed unless you know what you’re doing” and I clicked yes anyway.

I have 11.0 on my laptop and I was looking at some old 3.5" HDs with a Cables To Go IDE to USB connector. I could access the disk with no problem, turns outs it was blank anyway. But, I got this great idea to wipe it by re-formatting.

I entered the Partitioner and the external drive is there so I added a new partition. I tried to format but got an error so I went back a selected a mount point /tmp. It seemed to work and is now listed as a Linux Native partition mounted on /tmp.

The problem is I can’t get rid of it! I pulled out the USB cable (disconnecting the old external HD) and so far so good, everything is working fine. Later, after shutting down the laptop and restarting I get left at the ‘black’ screen of death (for a point and click guy).

I did my best to decipher the errors and came to realize the Laptop is looking for the external HD. When I reboot with it plugged in everything works fine but I can’t get rid of the drive and I’d rather not have to carry around this appendage just to boot up.

The Partitioner says it can’t delete the partition because it is mounted but when I try to unmount it (‘Safely remove’ from the USB icon in the menu bar) I get ERROR … Cannot open /Media/.hal-mtab, and the device is still in use /tmp, User:kevin, PID:3476, ACCESS:F…, COMMAND:gconfd2.

Can someone tell me a way to unmount and / or delete this old drive so I can get back to my normal boot up seq.

I have two WD 1TB external drives, also USB, that I formatted under Linux on this laptop a long time ago and they work fine. When I plug them in they work and the Laptop does not look for them at boot up. I’m not sure what I screwed up with this drive but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin

2

Slightly difficult to decipher all that.
Boot up and give is the following:

contents of: /etc/fstab

su terminal output of:

fdisk -l
3

NEVER, NEVER, EVER choose /tmp as mount point for a new partition (unless you want to f*ck up your running session and/or your data on that partition)!

4

Agreed
Still post the info we asked for, we may be able to get you out of this mess. Though I’m off to sleep now, been up nearly 24hrs.

5

ks-laptop:/home/kevin # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d10b5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 262 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 * 263 2873 20972857+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2874 9729 55070820 83 Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 10.2 GB, 10245537792 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1245 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a1911

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 1245 10000431 83 Linux

From the Partitioner:

DEVICE    SIZE    F  TYPE             
/dev/sdb  9.5 GB     Maxtor 5-1024U2
/dev/sdb1 9.5 GB     Linux native


MOUNT    
        
/tmp    


MOUNT BY  
        
|        


START   END
    0   1244
    0   1244


USED BY   LABEL




DEVICE ID
usb-Maxtor_5_1024U2_5208901C2222-0-0
usb-Maxtor_5_1024U2_5208901C2222-0-0-part1


DEVICE PATH
pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:3:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0
pci-0000:00:1d.7-usb-0:3:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
6

You did not actually post /etc/fstab ?

open that file and just try commenting out (#) that entry for sdb1
reboot without the drive
report back

7

As stated before, but to clarify

/tmp is NOT a dumping ground of useless stuff. /tmp is a CRUCIAL file system needed for a running machine.

If you are not willing to yank the oil pan on a moving car, don’t do that to /tmp.

There is a reason that /mnt exists. Use it.