USB stick being dismounted

[thane]

I'm running TC x86_64 version 15 on a lenovo X201 laptop, booting off a USB stick (no hard drive). Doing this pretty much daily. Every now and then (say once a month) when I check apps for updates before I shut down I find that the USB stick has been dismounted and the TCE directory is not writeable.

99% sure this is some sort of hardware issue specific to my setup (e.g. flaky connector or USB stick) but just wondering if anyone else ever encountered this. Nothing I can't live with -- I mainly use this box for websurfing when I want a screen that's bigger than my phone's.

Thane

[CNK]

If there's a hardware or filesystem problem that causes an error, the default in TC is "remount-ro" (which I've seen before with faulty drives and USB connections), so the filesystem becomes read-only but is still mounted. You can change this behaviour in /etc/fstab or with the mount command so the errors are ignored ("errors=continue"), but I wouldn't recommend it since the filesystem might get so messed up that TC won't boot anymore (although that might also happen eventually with the default setting).

[curaga]

Check dmesg when that happens.

[patrikg]

Maybe powersave mode, check bios for powersave to save battery-power it's shutdowns the usb ports.

[thane]

Belated thanks for the replies. The issue hasn't reoccurred since I posted but if/when it does I'll try the suggestions.

[thane]

Got the problem again yesterday. dmesg showed an error when trying to journal (I'm using EXT4 format on USB) and suggested a bad USB cable as a possible cause. Reinforces my belief that it's a hardware problem I'll probably just have to live with. Might try using a different brand of USB stick. Thanks again for your suggestions!

Thane