Safely Remove Mounted Drive - c

Question

I have an application that writes files to an external drive formatted as NTFS through the SATA interface.
Before closing the application I make sure that everything is flushed using FlushFileBuffers for each file (i.e. CreateFile, FlushFileBuffers, CloseHandle). Then I remove the drive, without first un-mounting it!
This seems to work fine when plugging the drive back into PC machines. However, when plugging it into a OS X the OS doesn't seem to find any files unless the drive was properly unmounted.
What could be missing from the disk which causes OS X not to find anything and is there a way I can flush that data without having to unmount the drive?
EDIT:
With exfat I have the problem with "dirty" drives not being writable when re-mounted.

Answer 1

You might want to read this Ronag, this might help you:
http://www.yourdailymac.net/2011/06/how-to-read-and-write-ntfs-harddrives-under-mac-os-x/
Snippet...
You might already know that it isn’t possible to read Windows drives that are formatted with the NTFS file structure by default under Mac OS X. The driver that is implemented into OS X is simply not capable of writing to NTFS formatted drives, it is likely that this has something to do with a commercial interest.
It is however quite annoying for a user that wants to exchange files from a Windows NTFS drive. That’s why several commercials applications were developed, but most of them cost money like Paragon NTFS for Mac, but there is also a free and even better solution available.
EDIT - I've read the following, this might aid with remounting NTFS drives etc - I have to admit to only using the MAC every now and again. - hopefully I'm not running off in the wrong direction for you ....
Here's the post I've found on the apple forums -
I have created a script to initialize NTFS HDisks and use them in write mode just by using the native OSX driver, without third party software). It seems to work also under Mavericks. You can download it from:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/native-ntfs-osx/files/
You only need to run it once for each new ntfs disk. Next time you plug a ntfs disk that was alreadyinitialized with my script, the disk will be automatically mounted (however, it will not be displayed in the desktop, you will have to open it from /Volumes).
It is also important that the HD has been safely removed, since NTFS contains a flag to notice if the disk was safely removed or not, not allowing to mount it in write mode with the native OSX driver (something similar happens under Linux). In case it happens you just need to plug it into a windows PC and safely remove the HD (so it cleans that flag).
and for your reference the bash script -
#!/bin/bash
checkExisting(){
echo "Checking if already existing device on file..."
while read fileLine; do
if [ "$line" = "$fileLine" ]; then
echo "[WARNING] Device already initialized on this system. Nothing to do here"
open "$FILENAME"
exit 0;
fi
done < /etc/fstab
}
addLine(){
uuid=$(diskutil info "$FILENAME" | grep UUID | cut -d ':' -f2 | tr -d ' ')
volumeName=$(diskutil info "$FILENAME" | grep "Volume Name" | cut -d ':' -f2 | tr -d ' ')
if [ "$uuid" = "" ]; then
line="LABEL=$volumeName none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse";
else
line="UUID=$uuid none ntfs rw,auto,nobrowse";
fi
checkExisting;
echo "# New NTFS HD: $volumeName on $(date) " >> /etc/fstab
echo $line >> /etc/fstab
device=$(diskutil info "$FILENAME" | grep "Device Node" | cut -d ':' -f2 | tr -d ' ')
diskutil unmount "$FILENAME"
diskutil mount $device
open $FILENAME;
exit 0;
}
checkDisk(){
filetype=$(diskutil info "$FILENAME" | grep "Type (Bundle):" | cut -d ':' -f2 | tr -d ' ')
#echo $filetype
if [ "$filetype" = "ntfs" ]; then
addLine;
fi
if [ "$filetype" = "" ]; then
echo "Error. Please, select a NTFS device"
fi
}
#Check sudo
if [[ $(/usr/bin/id -u) -ne 0 ]]; then
echo "This script should be run as ROOT. Try sudo"
exit
fi
echo "___________________________________"
echo "RubeniumTB. 2013 --ruben80(at)gmail.com--"
echo ""
echo "Initialize a NTFS Hard Disk on this system to read and write"
echo "Next time you won't need to initialize it again. Just plug and open but"
echo "take into account that:"
echo ""
echo "* Configured disks will not be auto-opened!!"
echo "* You will need to open /Volumes and click on your disk!!"
echo ""
echo "* Although it should not happen anything wrong, use at your own risk"
echo ""
echo "* IMPORTANT!!. Be sure that the NTFS device has been safely removed or it won't"
echo "be mounted in write mode. In this case you can connect it again to any windows PC,"
echo "remove safely, and then connect to your MAC"
echo ""
echo "* Also IMPORTANT!!. To avoid problems use SHORT names for the Volume names, "
echo "NO SPACES, and preferably only letters/numbers. Of course no special characters!!"
echo ""
echo "Now you are ready...."
echo "SELECT a NTFS Disk to initialize on this system"
echo "Write quit to exit"
echo ""
select FILENAME in "/Volumes"/*
do
case "$FILENAME" in
"$QUIT")
echo "Exiting."
break
;;
*)
echo "You picked "$FILENAME" "
checkDisk;
;;
esac
done