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So I'm trying to safely remove this USB drive, because when I don't it does not work properly. When I go on Nautilus and try to eject it, I get this error message:

Error ejecting: eject exited with exit code 1: eject: unable to eject, last error: Invalid argument

And when I try to safely remove it via Nautilus or Disk Utility:

Error detaching: helper exited with exit code 1: Detaching device /dev/sdb
USB device: /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:12.0/usb3/3-1)
SYNCHRONIZE CACHE: FAILED: No such file or directory
(Continuing despite SYNCHRONIZE CACHE failure.)
STOP UNIT: FAILED: No such file or directory

Doing a file system check on Disk Utility returns File system is clean.. Trying to unmount it via terminal returns this:

~sudo eject /dev/sdb
eject: unable to eject, last error: Invalid argument

I've tried to unmount it on Windows (dual boot system), but I simply got an error message saying that it was unable to eject it. No programs running or anything.

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8
  • Have you tried sudo umount /dev/sdb ?
    – douggro
    Dec 24, 2013 at 14:20
  • Weird, I get umount: /dev/sdb: not mounted as result. And I'm sure the device is mounted.
    – Gus
    Dec 24, 2013 at 15:08
  • Try ls /media and see if the drive shows there. If it does, sudo umount /media/drivename
    – douggro
    Dec 24, 2013 at 15:13
  • That worked! But it can be removed without problems just by unmounting? Safely removing still does not work.
    – Gus
    Dec 24, 2013 at 15:31
  • Once it's unmounted from /media you should be able to disconnect it from the computer without problem: the filesystem is unmounted at that point.
    – douggro
    Dec 24, 2013 at 15:50

2 Answers 2

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So, the problem has been solved thanks to Douggro, who helped me in the comments. I'm just reposting his answer here to close the question.

Try ls /media and see if the drive shows there. If it does, sudo umount /media/drivename – douggro

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  • 13
    what to do if it does not ?
    – d a i s y
    Feb 22, 2016 at 3:57
2

To safely remove an unmounted drive, eject with sudo

sudo eject /dev/sdb
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2
  • Should not need to eject as root.
    – David
    Feb 21, 2022 at 16:54
  • Edited to use sudo, not sudo su.
    – Concurrent EDA
    Feb 23, 2022 at 21:55

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