How to Dismount a Volume

Last Updated: March 29, 2019

You can remove a mounted volume, also known as dismounting a volume when you no longer want separate drives, or partitions on your computer for extra storage purposes. You can dismount a volume on Windows computers using the Control Panel, and on Mac OS X using the Terminal application.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Dismounting a Volume in Windows

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” The Control Panel window will display on-screen.
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”

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Dismounting a volume can only be done by the administrator.
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”
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The volume you selected will now be dismounted. ^{[1]
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Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Dismounting a Volume on Mac OS X

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”
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” The Terminal application will launch and display on-screen.
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” This command will provide you with a list of all drives connected to your Mac computer so you can grab the “drive identifier” of the volume you want dismounted.
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For example, if you want to dismount a flash drive you had named “wikiHow data,” find the volume for “wikiHow data” in the list of results.
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The drive identifier will be named “disk” followed by a combination of different numbers and characters, and is located at the end of the line for each volume listed. For example, the drive identifier may read as “disk0s2” or “disk1s2.”
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“diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s2,” while making sure that the appropriate drive identifier for the volume you want dismounted is used in place of “disk1s2” in this command. The volume will be officially dismounted when the following command is displayed in Terminal: “$ diskutil unmount /dev/disk1s2 Volume wikiHow data on disk1s2 unmounted” ^{[2]
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What does it mean to "dismount a volume"?

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It means that you are removing the storage area that was created on your physical hard drive from the operating system temporarily. You can add it back later if you would like. You can imagine it like removing a flash drive. The same thing happens, but the volume stays plugged in otherwise.

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How to Dismount a Volume

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Dismounting a Volume in Windows

Dismounting a Volume on Mac OS X

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