Chapter 13: Amazon EBS (Elastic Block Store)

13.7 Detaching a volume safely

By Ravindra Bagale Last updated: 25 September 2026

Detaching a mounted volume can corrupt data. Always unmount inside Linux first.

# 1. Stop anything using the disk
sudo lsof +f -- /data            # list open files on /data (install lsof if missing)
cd ~                             # make sure your shell is not inside /data

# 2. Unmount
sudo umount /data                # "target is busy" = something still uses it

# 3. Remove or comment the fstab line so boot does not look for it
sudo sed -i.bak '\#[[:space:]]/data[[:space:]]#s/^/#/' /etc/fstab
cat /etc/fstab

Console: Volumes → select → Actions → Detach volume → confirm. State becomes Available.
If you no longer need it: take a snapshot (optional) → Actions → Delete volume (stops billing).

Force detach

Force detach is only for emergencies when a normal detach is stuck; it can cause data loss or filesystem corruption.