Can you undock a W520 while it is still on?

[CDKUTTNAUER]

I am using a new W520 in a mini dock plus series 3 and wanted to know if you can undock the ThinkPad while still on (using Windows 7 x64). On my T61p with XP it had a Undock option on the Start Menu.

Thanks,

[davidhbrown]

I've been wondering about this, too... I'm a little disappointed that there is no undock button on the dock as there was for theT61p-era dock. (There's also no notebook stand to bring it up to the level of my main monitor... I'm using a slightly hacked Dell D-Series notebook stand and some velcro )

All of the ports (video, USB, audio, eSATA, power) are by their nature hot-pluggable, so there should be no harm to circuitry.

However, if you had write caching enabled for any external drives attached, that could definitely be a problem for data loss. It could be rather an annoyance to "Safely Remove" a large number of connected devices.

I will probably just sleep/hibernate/shutdown before undocking whenever I have disks attached (almost always... use one for continuous backup).

[commander]

Yes, you can. Check the lenovo blog about new docking (series 3)
http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox ... cking-301/

[davidhbrown]

Thanks for the blog link, but it makes no mention whatsoever about data loss issues with the "rip-and-go" approach.

[AMATX]

Easy enough to try; how 'bout trying it and posting your findings?

[commander]

Personally, I am shutting down the computer anyway. (i have to, I have advanced dock, but I will also with the series 3). I have attached an external soundcard and microphone, and sometimes windows don't recognize them and set them default, so I have to reboot or manually set my programs to these devices. If you have SSD, your boot time should be quick so I think it is safer.

[davidhbrown]

Easy enough to try; how 'bout trying it and posting your findings?

'cause I don't like losing data With the mSATA SSD, power-on and login via finger-swipe is only about a minute anyway.

[davidhbrown]

Found this in the Lenovo User Guide on my W520 system:

To detach your computer from the ThinkPad Mini Dock Series 3, the ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3,
or the ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (170 W), do the following:

1. Make sure that:
• The devices connected to USB connectors are not in use.
• The connection to an Ethernet port has been ended.
• The devices connected to an eSATA port are not in use (ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 and
ThinkPad Mini Dock Plus Series 3 (170 W)).

The undock button and Windows' response seemed to take of this for us. Omitting it in the current series of docks is *not* an improvement.