Ok, this is what I have found out so far: Ubuntu Karmic, when using any full desktop install, uses devicekit-disks by default, which is _very_ tightly integrated with udev, D-Bus, devmapper, etc., so it is probably not a very wise idea to go poking around at hardware with sdparm etc., unless you are in single-user mode without any of those services running.
Instead, use the `devkit-disks` command to unmount partitions, detach hard drives, set spindown timeouts etc. from the command line. Please look at `man devkit-disks`, it has an entire section on spinning down disks. An example pertaining to this bug report: #Detach (spindown & prepare to safely remove) a disk on /dev/sdb #First, unmount any mounted partitions $ devkit-disks --unmount /dev/sdb1 #Then, detach the disk from the system $ devkit-disks --detach /dev/sdb None of these commands should need root privileges for disks which the user is allowed to mount/unmount from the desktop. -- WD external drives need to be spun down, "sdparm --command=stop" doesn't work any more https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/117713 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
