Shutting down PC before Unmounting the Pod

[GuyVer]

Hi all,

Just something to wonder about. My wife shut down my PC last night when she was finished sending emails etc. The problem for me was that my pod was docked in its cradle at the time.

I am wondering if part of the PC shut down process unmounts the iPod, or could this action be pretty dangerous to an iPod? My iPod wouldn't have been doing anything but charging at the time, ie it was in the usual 'Do not Disconnect state'.

The pod itself seems to be fine and has suffered no damage that I can detect. I am wondering whether this was just luck though. Does anyone out there know for sure?

I am using Windows 2000 Professional if that's of any use.

Thanks,

GuyVer

[MarlboroMan]

That's a good question. Here's my thought: the iPod is mounted as a removeable device, which is controlled by the Removeable Storage service on w2k and XP machines. Since a shutdown stops all services, it stops the removable storage server. Stopping the removable storage service requires that it first safely remove all hardware. Hence, it auto-magically undocks your iPod before shutting down.

I have been known to be wrong in the past.

Once.

[MonkeyIceCube]

Malboro man could be right - it is the same as what i was thinking. The trouble may come whenthe computer crashes - and therefore does not have the ability to shut those services.

[GuyVer]

Sounds like sound reasoning to me. The pod acted as if it had been in sleep mode and woke as normal so I am guessing you are right.

I dont plan to test the theory to regularly mind ;)

The thought of what a crash could cause is potentially a nasty one. Is there anyone out there that this has happened to who could post results?

GuyVer

[TsUPeR]

I havent had any problems so far from just shutting down my computer and not unmounting the iPod. One thing I noticed is that sometimes the ipod doesn't shut down itself resulting in a drained battery after a night in the dock...

[puntloos]

One thing I did notice is that the ipod does NOT show the 'OK to Disconnect' icon when I shut down my dad's windows ME box. Not even after it already is restarting.

This makes me very suspicious, I suspect windows ME doesn't handle this properly. I just got the ipod, I havent tried on my windows XP box yet but my thought is that you can tell from the ipod display whether or not its a proper unmount. It should know, right?

On the other hand, as long as you havent done anything too hard with it (write actions, specifically) you should be OK.

[JYoung]

Originally posted by GuyVer

The thought of what a crash could cause is potentially a nasty one. Is there anyone out there that this has happened to who could post results?



Well, even if your system crashed, it wouldn't physically damage the internal hard drive. There is a chance that you could have your FAT or other files corrupted but the worst case scenario would be that you would have to reformat your iPod and reload your music. BFD.
The only real problem might be if your power failed to your system right when you were writing to the iPod. Even then, most modern hard drives can compensate for this.
If it really bothers you, put your system on a UPS.....

[puntloos]

Actually with Windows XP you can tell windows to only do safe writes (i.e. turn caching off). If it doesnt cache that means all writes are executed immediately and you are much less likely to end up with a filing system that thinks it has file X but doesnt have the actual data for file X yet.

The window displaying that option even says you can safely unplug the device any time, even though indeed if some app is writing to it that would still be Bad(tm) though not physically damaging.

[lilmoonee]

it should be fine....as to windows its a regular hard disk (eg u can defrag etc.) its basicly the same as shutting off your built in hard disk.

[ironchef9000]

actually, i've had problems with this.

I accidentally shut down, and the ipod said "do not disconnect". when I reloaded xp pro, it didn't recognize the ipod. So I took it out, had to do a couple restarts on the ipod, and I got it to load right, but each time I would start it up there would be problems.

restarted connected to the AC outlet, fixed it.....essentially, I'd recomment NOT shutting down before unmounting the pod.