Unable To Safely Remove USB External Drive
Mar 23, 2008
When I try to disconnect my external usb drive I get the following message. " Windows can't stop your Generic volume device because it is in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later." I have no programs running that would be accessing the USB external drive that I know of. Is there some way to find out what program is accessing it? I have things in the back ground like Windows Onecare who uses that drive to back up my files, but happens in the middle of the night.
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Sep 28, 2009
Before I remove a USB thumb drive, I click the green check from notification area; I click the message that appears next to the green check, Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device - drives (F:, G; then a dialog box appears that states, This device can now be safely removed from computer.
The light on the thumb drive, however, stays lighted. I previously followed a procedure where the light would go off on the thumb drive when I did a Safely Remove.
Should the light on the thumb drive go off before it can be safely removed? If so, how do I get the thumdrive light to go off?
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Dec 20, 2009
I have an external hard drive that's divided into 2 partitions. I want to reformat the drive and eliminate the partitions. (Or do I say I want to have only 1 partition?) How do I get rid of the two partitions?
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Mar 23, 2008
When I try to connect an external USB hard drive or a USB memory stick to my laptop, Vista throws up a message saying: ???Windows needs to install driver software for your Unknown Device???. I let Vista search, but Vista cannot find the required driver. However, when I connect the same external USB hard drive or a USB memory stick to my desktop PC, also running Vista Ultimate, Vista has no problems recognizing the device and installing the required driver automatically and without throwing up any messages. I suspect that some Vista service(s) on my laptop might be disabled or not functioning properly, but I cannot find out which one could be the cause. Perhaps someone here could point me in the right direction.
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Apr 24, 2010
It's unable to either normally format any external memory devices into a FAT or FAT32 format, or unable to read it at all. I keep trying to open the device but it keeps saying that i need to format it, but because of problem 1, it can't be formated (it almost completes but the process shuts down, stating that it can't be formated). This problem has been happening for the longest time and I really need this fixed.
When I say external memory devices, i mean CDs, DVDs, Flash drives, SD cards, memory card readers. Everytime I check the disk management of these devices, it says they are Primary Partitioned (which is the normal status right?). And the only thing that seems to be the problem is the RAW file system (which I heard windows doesn't read)............
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Apr 15, 2009
[I am running Vista Home Premium 64 bit]
I plugged in my Toshiba USB hard drive when I first got my computer about a week ago, to transfer programs and files to the new computer.
Now, for the past several days I have tried to remove it and I keep getting the message, "cannot safely remove it because it is in use"!
It is NOT in use as far as I know. In fact today I started my computer and did not even access the drive at all yet I get the same error from "Safely Remove Hardware".
I have turned indexing off on the drive, on both partitions.
MS sent me a "Hotfix" via email but when I went to install it there were all kinds of warnings with it, basically telling me "use this at your own risk, we are not vouching for this being reliable!" So I was rather afraid to do it.
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Apr 23, 2008
When trying to safely remove a SanDisk Cruzer 2GB flash drive on my new laptop, it does not stop the device. Actually, nothing happens. The icon does appear in the taskbar, but it just doesn't do anything.
When trying to remove it via windows explorer, explorer freezes and has to be restarted.
When shutting down or restarting Vista with the USB device still attached it freezes. In safe mode, the device does stop after using "safely remove hardware" and I get this message that it has been stopped. Is this a problem of Vista or is it my new laptop?
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Mar 23, 2008
When I connect any usb device, Safely Remove Hardware icon doesn't appear. It is not hidden in notification arae.What is the problem? I can't remove my hardwares safely.
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Aug 18, 2008
I've been lurking on these forums for a while, and decided to finally register and add a few of my thoughts on software here. There are some excellent threads on good software around this part of the forum, but as always I have some favorites of my own. Here's my list of useful (free) things; It's not a COMPLETE list, see the stickies for that.. Some of the things I'll list here are alternatives to suggested software in other threads, I'll try to give a brief comment on why I prefer one over another.
NKProds nCleaner - While ccleaner does a good job, it has messed things up for me a number of times. nCleaner hasn't caused any problems at all for me (yet). It does a wonderful job of cleaning up (both disk and registry), and also includes some basic tweaking. The UI is a huge improvement over the really unintuitive ccleaner, and is definetely a better choice for inexperienced users (I recommend it for everyone though, regardless of level of expertise). PeaZip - It looks better than 7-zip, unpacks TONS of formats and has a native x64 binary... Nothing else to say. HotSwap! - Safely remove eSATA drives (and other stuff if you choose).... Yes, it needs to be done. Serious Samurize - Widgets on steroids, there's nothing more customizable. It's not made to be simple though, so expect to fiddle about ALOT if you want something unique. There goes... Just my few cents.
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Mar 21, 2009
I have a built in sd card reader in my Rizeon laptop which appears in device manager as working ok and most upto date driver installed. It also appears in the safely remove device icon. However nothing appears in my computer and I cannot find any way to access the drive. I have windows vista home premium installed fully updated. I suspect the problem could be something to do with windows vista. Any one else come across the same problem?
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Jun 9, 2008
I just purchased a USB hard drive to use for backup purposes. Ran complete image backups on the internal hard drive, no problems. Now when I try to use the "safely remove hardware" icon in the system tray, it keeps telling me that the device is in use. I checked Device Manager and the option "optimize for quick removal" is checked. Indexing is turned off. I can't figure out what's using it.
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Dec 28, 2008
I have four (4) hard disks C: D: E: F: all are connected with sata cable and power cable.(of course) The F: is outside from the pc and connected via external SATA and power cable (like usb NOT usb) I know,with USB external hard disk i can use the safely remove option.
Is there any option to safely remove SATA hard disk without Shut Down the pc?
1) Start-Control Panel-Device Manager-Disk Drives-Right Click on hard disk-Properties-Policies-UntikDisable the Enable write cashing on the disk??
2) Start-Control Panel-Device Manager-Disk Drives-Right Click on hard disk-Disable??
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Sep 13, 2009
Have you had any problems with USB flash drives with Vista? I saw articles saying that Vista doesn't have "Safely Remove Hardware" like in XP, and some people aren't sure when to remove the flash drive from the computer. Is one USB flash drive different from another, except in size?
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Mar 23, 2008
when booting up from a vista cd I accidentally had my usb external hard drive plugged in and the drive has been emptied and replaced by windows there are sintimental photos etc on the drive can anyone help me to restore them
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Jul 2, 2008
Does 'Local Disc' D mean it is a drive inside my machine or could it be my external hard drive?
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Oct 6, 2009
I was starting my computer today (that has Vista), and during the start up process, a black screen came up stating that there was an error opening up my external hard drive and it was checking for errors. After it finally booted up, I went to open the hard drive files, and it was totally BLANK! I then restarted the computer, and still the hard drive is EMPTY! I had ALL my important files in there!
The ONLY thing that looks promising is that when I go to Start then to Computer, it shows the hard drive there, and it still shows that 43GB are free of 111GB of storage (same info shows by right clicking on it and going to Properties). Why would it show this if nothing is on the hard drive anymore? Is there ANYWAY to recover these files again you think???? I NEED those files!!!! Remember that the hard drive STILL PHYSICALLY WORKS. It's just that I cannot access the files on my pc at the time for some reason.......
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May 21, 2008
I just bought and installed a external hard drive. I am fairly knowlegable about computers but this is my first Ex. Hard drive and know very little about there use. So what I want to know is how to save my Family Tree Makers files to it. And once I do that how do I know for sure it is opening from my new drive and not my computer C: drive? I saved it to a DVD one time but when the time came when I needed it all that was there was a short cut but no files.
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May 18, 2008
I just used Windows Vista to back up my drive to an external drive. It said the backup was successful but when I went to safely remove hardware, I got this message: " Windows can't stop your Generic volume device because it is in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later. "I made sure everything was closed, checked with Task Manager and tried again. Same message. After 20 minutes, I finally just disconnected it.
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Apr 12, 2010
I am having a problem using POP3 and SMTP set up. Some times I need to use a website email t respond but getting too may error messages and unable to remove those as well. I prefer using my regular email gerdabrook@att.net I am familiar with but cannot with a website response email.
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Sep 8, 2009
I have Windows XP and Vista. I always go through "safely remove hardware" before pulling off USB drive on XP. However, I have been trying to do the same on Vista, it seems that I cannot do the same as XP. For instance, I plug in my USB on Vista and it appears as H drive on Vista, when I am ready to do "safely remove hardware", I don't see the device drive H is on the "Safely remove hardware" window, so I cannot stop the H drive. I am concerned about the Vista hardware.
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May 7, 2008
I'm at my wits' end and don't know what to do next --I have Vista Home Premium on a 36-bit computer. I unstalled a local USB Dell printer and it was working fine. Then it started printing tiny letters, then stopped printing at all and printer icons disappeared from the Control Panel. I used Windows Update and installed Service Pack 1. The printer icons are back, but there are now multiple copies of the printer which I'm unable to delete. At restart, the printer prints the same page each time. I went into Services, stopped and restarted the spooler to no effect.
Would appreciate any thoughts on how to fix this.
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Apr 17, 2008
I was wonder if anyone know a solution for the following problem. I have a ethernet hard drive and I've never had a problem until using vista and windows server 2008. both operating systems are unable to browse the drive, instead it completely crashes explorer.exe. Windows server 2003 & XP have never had trouble.
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Mar 23, 2008
I recently bought a western digital 1TB hard drive which I had to reformat before I could use. Everything works good now, except for onething. Sometimes the computer doesn't want to restart while the new drive is plugged in. If I remove it from the USB port prior to restarting, it will restart just fine.
It shuts down and turns on without an issue. This only happens when I
restart the system with it plugged in.
So while it's not a big issue,it is an annoyance.
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Dec 8, 2008
I just Bought a 120Gig External HardDrive and i want to put An O/S on it how do i do that? i bought an external HDD because all my PC games take up all my HDD space in my computer :P)
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May 9, 2009
I got a large external hard drive today and it's instructions say to go to
disk management and do format and partition. I messed up and deleted the
drives volume. Now it is not listed in disk management. I looked everywhere
to get it back and can't figure it out. How do I make Vista recognize this
drive again so I can partition and format it?
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Apr 24, 2010
For some reason, It's unable to either normally format any external memory devices into a FAT or FAT32 format, or unable to read it at all. I keep trying to open the device but it keeps saying that i need to format it, but because of problem 1, it can't be formated (it almost completes but the process shuts down, stating that it can't be formated). This problem has been happening for the longest time and I really need this fixed.
When I say external memory devices, i mean CDs, DVDs, Flash drives, SD cards, memory card readers. Everytime I check the disk management of these devices, it says they are Primary Partitioned (which is the normal status right?). And the only thing that seems to be the problem is the RAW file system (which I heard windows doesn't read). However, the wierd thing is if I plug in something like a USB mouse, or a camera, it has full functionality (I.E. the mouse works/files are reachable on the camera). I then tried to format it using the cmd lines, and tried to format it to FAT32, but after it says 100% formated, and i try to use it again, Disk Management tells me that it's back in RAW format.
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May 17, 2009
i have simpletech 160gb external drive. i cannot access my external drive,i can see the drive but i cannot access it i dont want to format because lots of important file are in it. when i check it from disk management right click the drive E: then on the property windows i choose tools clik the check now boton. it gives me error "The disk check could not be performed because Windows cannot access the disk."
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Jul 29, 2009
I am in need of assistance concerning my external hard drive. My hard drive has been working flawlessly for the past 3 years. As of today, my computer no longer recognizes it. This is what I have done so far:
-Unplugged it, plugged it back up, and my computer made a chime saying that it was recognized and said that it was ready to go.
-However, the HDD does not show up on the my computer tab.
-I removed the HDD from its enclosure, purchased a USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE and tried uploading the HDD to my wife's computer. Once again, her computer chimed saying that it was recognized (she runs XP, i have vista), but, once again, the hard drive was not in the my computer folder.
-I then proceeded to Computer Management, Disk Management, and noticed that my external hard drive is not there either.
I thought that maybe intially my power cord to the outlet in the wall just went bad, but after I bought the USB to SATA/IDE adapter and it still didn't work...well, I ran out of options.
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Nov 18, 2009
I have a simpletech external hard drive. When plugging it into the USB port windows vista is not recognizing the disk in my computer.
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Oct 23, 2009
I had to create a windows recovery disk
I used it to system restore her system to a date before she had set her password
and on the menu it said install vista
and on my old laptop that my dad has it's a 2gb compaq presario
they're not made anymore
it has low memory it's very slow and really
hardly useable without getting very stressed
so if I used the recovery disk I created
and click install vista
will it be like a new laptop?
there's nothing needed on the laptop
so nothing is being lost by resetting the laptop
it's got vista home premium x86
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Feb 20, 2010
I am using Robocopy to backup photos and music files to a local network connected 1TB Western Digital drive. The initial backup worked for both tasks. This is the command line in the .bat Robocopy C:UsersOwnerMusic ecordings \externaldrivepublicBackUp-Music ecordings /S /COPYT /MIR /Log:MusicBkupLog.txt Now, the subsequent backup for my music folders fails on a specific folder with error: ERROR 5 (0x00000005) Deleting Extra File \externaldrivepublicBackUp-Music ecordingsAmbroseNewA Fine Romance-Browne.mp3 Access is denied. The process stops there. Subsequent folders are not backed up. The ownership for that folder looks suspect: nobody (Unix User obody)
Other folders that work have owner as: administrator (EXTERNALDRIVEadmin) I can not change the offending folder's owner. I have tried the following as administrator: Properties > Security > Advanced > Owner > Edit > change owner to I get access denied. And with DOS from an administrator command prompt: takeown /f S:BackUp- MusicRecordingsAmbroseNew RMDIR /S S:BackUp-MusicRecordingsAmbroseNew I get access denied. I can access the directory so my path must be correct: dir S:BackUp-MusicRecordingsAmbroseNew How can I change ownership or delete the offending folder?
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