[NTLUG:Discuss] Is KDE's "Safely Remove" safe?

[Leroy Tennison]

I'm noticing unusual behavior with this feature in relation to USB 
drives.  If I insert a USB stick KDE pops up a dialog asking what to 
do.  If I select "Open in a new window" it does and the drive is 
accessible (and mounted).  If I later select "Safely Remove" and nothing 
is open on the drive then the drive is unmounted, the icon disappears 
and it no longer appears in the Storage Media list.  All of that is OK 
(except the fact that I have to remove the drive and re-insert it for 
KDE to recognize it after that).  However, if I su to root at a bash 
prompt, I can't manually mount the drive (it is still inserted).  "ls 
/dev/s*" shows an "sda" but mount can't mount /dev/sda1 and fdisk as 
well as parted can't open /dev/sda.

In contrast, if I select "Do nothing" at KDE's dialog, then I can mount 
and umount /dev/sda1 at will (as well as use fdisk and parted with it).

Any ideas, insight or experience with this?