Usage
There is not much to know about using the preference pane. Once unlocked and licensed, you just tick which volumes you wish to have unmounted automatically. A few things to keep in mind when using the preference pane:
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• Only currently mounted volumes and those not mounted but currently in the list (of volumes to automatically be unmounted) will appear in the list of volumes;
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• If you wish to add a volume that is not currently in the list, you must mount it first. Do this either by plugging it in if it is removable (like a USB or Firewire drive) or via Disk Utility if it is already physically present. It should automatically appear in the list of volumes;
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• The list of volumes is only extended as volumes are manually mounted or unmounted. To remove volumes from the list that are no longer mounted and are not selected to be unmounted at startup, click on the “Reload” button in the bottom right of the preference pane.
How It Works
Behind the scenes are two programs. Firstly, every time you check or uncheck a volume in the list, a program is called to update the system-wide list of volumes to be unmounted. Secondly, at boot time on your Mac, a second program (a StartupItem) looks at that list of volumes and force unmounts those volumes using diskutil. Force unmount is used, as gently unmounting them does not always work. You should be able to see messages relating to the unmounting activity in the Console logs.
Internally, the preference pane looks out for notifications regarding new volumes mounting but there are occasions where it is not notified, hence the manual “Reload” button.