Re: [gentoo-user] My Gentoo and Windows don't get along on vfat

[Frank Steinmetzger]

On Fri, Sep 22, 2017 at 01:43:24PM +0200, J. Roeleveld wrote:

> > Naturally, I always unmount the drive prior to removing it physically,
> > usually with KDE’s media manager. The drive (or the controller in the case?)
> > contains a cdrom emulation to offer drivers and something called “WD
> > SmartWare”. *shiver* I always wonder whether this plays a part with our
> > problems. When the drive is connected to Windows – IIRC – first the cdrom
> > appears, and after a while disappears and makes way for the actual data
> > partition.
>
> aargh...
> I stopped using those WD drives, if you want to disable that part, follow
> instructions on the WD support page:
> https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=3835
> (If this works)
>
> > Do you have similar experiences and maybe even a tip on how to make her and
> > my systems play along better? The only thing coming to my mind right now is
> > to ditch fat32 and go with something more robust like exfat(?) or ntfs.
> […]
> My guess is, you unmount the cd-partition, instead of the actual data
> partition. The broken firmware in those drives cause issues with the
> drivers, which is what that "cdrom" partition actually tries to fix.

Well I can’t say for sure what I did yesterday, but usually I try to make
quite sure to Do the Right Thing™ (usually I go through both partition
entries in the media panel and try to unmount them) to avoid exactly what
had happened.

> Best advice: Scrap that drive and get one without the cdrom-partition.

Well the disk itself works alright, smart is clean and the long self-test
came back with no problems. So I guess that’s not really an option. :o)
An extended smart self-test just came back with 100 % A-OK.
I’ll suggest to her to disable SmartWare.

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