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Unmounting a computer term is the process of safely detaching a storage device, like a USB drive or external hard drive, from the operating system by making its file system inaccessible. This is the opposite of mounting, and it ensures all data has been written to the device before it's physically removed, preventing data corruption or loss. You must unmount before disconnecting to avoid issues, and you can do this through commands in the operating system or by using the "Eject" function.

How it works

Mounting: When you connect a device, the operating system "mounts" it to make its contents accessible through the file system.

Unmounting: The "unmount" command reverses this process. It finalizes any pending read or write operations, unlinks the device from the operating system's directory structure, and makes it safe to physically disconnect.

Data safety: Without unmounting, you risk data corruption because the system might still be in the middle of writing data to the device, even if it appears to be finished.