How to unmount USB shares in tech support mode

It's a low-level diagnostics mode. Unless the tech has manually mounted the USB disk (not sure why the tech would) there would be no problem removing the USB disk.

This mode is designed to be able to be used for all sorts of problems including for assessing situations where there are multiple disk failures, the OS partition is full.

Thank you!

Now the real question- I have unmounted both my USB backups, but they are both in EXT3 format and all my workstations are either Windows 7 or Mac OSX (Snow Leopard or Lion)

One of the last things that happened before everything went south was the nightly backup stopped with an error message. I have no idea whether only the last days' data was lost or if the entire drive was corrupted. With my ReadyNAS out and in tech support mode, I need to access to the data on my backup drives or I'm dead in the water.

I am not an IT professional, and I've never used Linux, so is there a semi-idiotproof way for me access the data or at least check to see that it is there?

I've been doing some research and it seems like most solutions are complicated and possibly risky. I don't mind spending a few bucks on software if it works.

Thanks for any advice!
Doug

Update:

Fortunately, a combination of MacFUSE and fuse-ext2 worked and I have access to the backups. phew.

It even got the last days' work before giving the error.

dougj99 wrote:
Update: Fortunately, a combination of MacFUSE and fuse-ext2 worked and I have access to the backups. phew. It even got the last days' work before giving the error.

Something for future reference if you use EXT3 on your USB drives
Ext2 Installable File System For Windows http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html

Cool! Thanks for the tip!

-Doug

HERBIEO wrote:
Something for future reference if you use EXT3 on your USB drives Ext2 Installable File System For Windows http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html

I'd not seen this one before, looks very cool, thanks. I've used explore2fs:

http://www.chrysocome.net/explore2fs

The FAQ for the Ext2 IFS For Windows suggests you have to run e2fsck on an ext3 volume if it hasn't been cleanly dismounted. I'm not sure how explore2fs might handle this as I've only formatted my external USB drive(s) to EXT2.