How to unmount/mount drive in windows

[djesteban]

Ok, so this is super easy to do in Linux/*nix systems through a terminal, but how the hell do I do this in Windows?!?!

So I have this external eSATA drive and I want to unmount the drive before I take it offline, anyone know how to unmount a drive (can be through command line, I don't mind)

Thanks in advance!!

Edited November 18, 2009 by djesteban

[_neutrino Veteran]

in the taskbar next to the clock there should be a icon for remove external device. double click on it and it should bring up the prompts.

[djesteban]

in the taskbar next to the clock there should be a icon for remove external device. double click on it and it should bring up the prompts.

Nice try :p

But this is not an external USB drive, it is eSATA and it's treated like a normal internal SATA drive. So basically what I am asking for is... how do you unmount an internal SATA drive?

[Olemus]

Some more info would be nice, which version of windows would be a good start.

[hdood]

mountvol X: /D or "remove" from diskpart or the disk manager in the management console?

This unmounts the volume, but it doesn't make it okay to physically remove the drive. You could try to remove the device in device manager, but unless you get the notification area icon, Windows is not treating the drive as removable. Does the controller and drive actually support hot swapping?

[djesteban]

mountvol X: /D or "remove" from diskpart or the disk manager in the management console?

This unmounts the volume, but it doesn't make it okay to physically remove the drive. You could try to remove the device in device manager, but unless you get the notification area icon, Windows is not treating the drive as removable. Does the controller and drive actually support hot swapping?

Well, it's an external eSATA hard drive tray. Now, I don't think you can hot swap per say, but that's why I was thinking about manually unmounting the drive, then power off the tray, remove the HDD, put the new HDD and power on the HDD tray. Then I would do a rescan disk in Disk Management. Do you think that would work... or do I need to actually shut down every time I want to change the disk.

Ohh and for your information, here's the tray I am using

[hdood]

Well it sounds like the port you have it plugged into is not an eSATA hot swap port. You could try uninstall it in device manager and unplugging it, that's all I can think of, but you might end up crashing the machine. You'll find out soon enough. I don't believe this is a supported scenario in Windows.

[Eric Veteran]

It should be safe to unplug the drive after you mark it "Offline" in Disk Management.

There's a 3rd-party hot-swap tool as well. http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

[Piggy]

Try Hotswap. It works for my eSata Freeagent.

http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

[djesteban]

Well it sounds like the port you have it plugged into is not an eSATA hot swap port. You could try uninstall it in device manager and unplugging it, that's all I can think of, but you might end up crashing the machine. You'll find out soon enough. I don't believe this is a supported scenario in Windows.

A BIG star for you as you found the solution to my problem :)

I had the dock plugged to one of my standard eSATA port. I plugged it in the "hot swap" eSATA port and voil?!!! I can now switch the unit on or off and change the HDD. I didn't know there was a specific port for this, but now I know thanks to you!

Thanks man and everyone!

[SyntaxError]

nevermind

[+Warwagon MVC]

Sweet Thanks for the recommendation. I always hated just turning off the power to my sata dock.

and yes Google brought me here!

[ybrett23]

Well it sounds like the port you have it plugged into is not an eSATA hot swap port. You could try uninstall it in device manager and unplugging it, that's all I can think of, but you might end up crashing the machine. You'll find out soon enough. I don't believe this is a supported scenario in Windows.

i can agree with this