My USB pen drive disappears if I unmount it.

Asked by Alberto

Hello Techies,
first meet my system:
(Lubuntu 16.04.2 LTS)
Linux jalopy 4.10.0-42-generic #46~16.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Mon Dec 4 15:57:59 UTC 2017 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux
.
My 4GB USB FAT32 pen drive is mounted to /media/alberto/E273-ADCA.
It disappears when I unmount it.
I use File Manager PCManFM 1.2.4. If I unmount the unit, well, it disappears. File Manager does not list it any more in Places and it
does not list the folder E273-ADCA.
Disks (gnome-disk-utility 3.18.3.1) lists it as /dev/sdc and as if it didn't have any partition. But It does have one, sdc1.
There is no way to mount it again using Disks.
GParted 0.25.0 does not even list it.
Unreachable!
The only way to connect the unit to the system is to unplug it and plug it back.
Is there a way to solve this problem?
Many thanks

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Alberto
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Alberto (alby-the-baldy) said :
#1

One more little bit of information:
File Manager is set to automatically mount mountable volumes at startup.
.
Another one bit:
After startup the volume appears on desktop as 3.9 GB Volume.
If I launch File Manager its name changes to:
E273-ADCA
.
Thanks

Revision history for this message
Leo Kerr (silentstormer) said :
#2

When you unmount a usb, it makes the system unable to use it until its plugged out and plugged in. Its the same with windows and macOSX. If you want to mount it again, plug it back in.

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Alberto (alby-the-baldy) said :
#3

Hello Leo, thanks for your explanation!
One thing I don't understand is why this did not happen before. I mean before what I described in Q 660187.
I've had to change ownership to an external USB HDD I had formatted (to ext4) and I could not write to anymore.
So I made some changes to its mount point and changed its ownership, but I did not change anything to the pen drive set.
Just after all what I performed for the external USB HDD the pen drive started to behave like I've written.
Before all this the pen was, yes, unmounted but still listed by File Manager.
I didn't have to unplug it and plug it back. It did not disappear. And this used to happen with the standard setup following the OS installation.
What do you think?

Revision history for this message
Alberto (alby-the-baldy) said :
#4

The problem solved by itself, and I don't know how.
Now if I unmount my pen it keeps being listed by File Manager. So, using File Manager it can be mounted back to the system.
More, its name on the desktop is now correct, 4GB Volume.
Please note that I did not confuse unmount with eject. Linux must be a self-healing operating system, or user's brain reading...!
Thanks