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?
View 8 RepliesWhen 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.
View 4 Replies View Related[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.
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?
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.
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.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI 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?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI 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.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI 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??
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?
how do i find windows vista sp1 and odownload it safely?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI've been trying to get rid of one of those pernicious programs that I inadvertantly downloaded when I attempted to download a file that purported to be an explanation of the COMDLG32.OCX. Its one of those PC scan programs, I did a search on it and deleted every file that I could find, but since Vista doesn't have a feature to remove programs I guess that I'll have to find another way.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have experienced two instances were Add/Remove in Vista does not remove all the software, so that comprehensive installation of similar software is not possible. The first concerned a Scanner, where Add/Remove would not remove all the software, so that installation of the new Scanner is not possible, until a procedure recommended by the Scanner's makers involving modifications to the Registry is carried out, which I could not possibly do myself, so it means hiring a Professional to do the job!
The second concerns Spellex. Here again the old version has not been removed, so that installation of the latest version is not fully carried out, making the software useless. How can Microsoft produce Windows where such problems occur? What is the experience of others in case this is a fault with my computer?
How can I remove vista?? When I purchased my computer about a year ago, it came with vista.
View 7 Replies View RelatedI have had enough of Vista and would like to remove it and install Windows XP Home Edition but don't know where to start. I have the XP CD and don't want to keep anything from Vista.
View 8 Replies View RelatedI have an ACER 5100 running vista home. I would like to remove vista and load xp. Is this do able? Also, ACER puts a lot of there propaganda on the machine that is very hard and even imposable to remove. Will installing xp remove all this stuff and how will whats in the bios effect things.
View 6 Replies View Relatedif you have problems with vista not refreshing when you remove the CD from the tray Do A Firmware update that fixed my problems you might want to do it anyway it might resolve other issues with your DVDrw.
View 0 Replies View RelatedI have two hard drives ,each hard drive is partitioned into 2.
Drive 1
Partition C:
Partition D:
Drive 2
Partition E:
Partition F:
I have Vista Home Premium on C: Drive. Have Windows 7 on E: Drive. My Boot File is on the C : Drive for both Operating Systems. If I want to remove Vista on Drive 1 , Partition C: First of all what would be the easiest way of removing Vista? Reformat the drive or can you uninstall it with the programs?? If I do Format the C: Drive,I would loose the Boot Manager File. I would probably not be able to even boot into Win 7. If I can not boot into 7 Can I insert the DVD do a repair to bring back the Boot file to C:? Or can I just use a second party Boot Manager like Easy BCD to configure Boot manager??
When I click on an advert in Firefox for a trusted website, I am greeted with the popup box saying "The operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator". This is also happening on programs which open other programs - all of which I give full permission to do.
I never had this problem on XP and do not know how to remove this restriction on Vista. I am the only user on this computer and hold the administrator account.
If I want to format my HD on vista or remove partitions, what is the procedure? All I have is the back up DVD's that I made. My original HD gave me intermittent problems so I abandoned it. Is there any way to get the recovery program from the original disk onto my new hard drive?
View 8 Replies View RelatedOn my C: drive I have a C:/windows.old directory as well as a C:/windows directory. The 'old' directory was last modified many months ago. C:/Windows takes up 9+GB/ C:/Windows.old takes up 14+GB. Can I safely delete 'Windows.old' from my PC?
View 6 Replies View RelatedI want to uninstall silverlight, there are also 7 microsoft visual C++ updates and 1 microsoft SQL server. Are they just for the silverlight and can be safely uninstalled?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI used to use this site when I had XP to know which services I could turn off safely, and I wondered whether this is still a good site to go to for such things (ie Vista), I only ever used it to try to get that extra bit of oomph out of the PC and by and large it helped a fair bit. I still have loads listed in the Task Manager Processes, and am unsure what I can stop and what I should leave well alone Or is there a guide here for such things? has anyone else used Black Vipers site? or should I keep my distance? Black Viper's Web Site
View 5 Replies View RelatedI keep getting prompts to update Jave Sun system. I already have Java 6 updates 7 and 13 amounting to 230.5 MB.I used to have Open Office suite but have uninstalled it as I now run M/Soft Office.What else is Java used for? Can I safely uninstall the updates? and how do I stop the new update Prompts
View 3 Replies View RelatedIs there an easy way to remove Vista and then install XP without having to reload all programs? How about drivers? Are they a problem
View 9 Replies View RelatedI recently acquired a new Sony Vaio laptop computer with Vista pre-installed. how to remove all of Vista from my machine without using a fairly large hammer on the hard drive? I would like to get back to some pleasant computing with XP.
View 8 Replies View RelatedI keep reading about folks who needed to remove some sticks of ram before installing vista 64-bit. Is this mandatory? I have 4 gig of Ram and I really don't want to open up my box and remove 2 gigs, as my computer is large and I'd have to remove memory cooling, etc. (I know, lazy) Do some people with 4 gigs ram succeed in installing vista without removing memory?
View 4 Replies View RelatedThe arrows in the icons in Vista are annoying me. After a bit of googling, I've found out that a utility called 'Vista Shortcut Manager' can be used to remove those arrows without any manual registry editing. Thing is I can find only the x86 version of the software but I'm using the Vista x64.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI use an external esata enclosure. When I plug it into my laptop, Vista Ultimate x64 recognises the hotplugging and sees the drive right away, and handles it fine when I switch off. I have a Vista Ultimate x64 desktop using a motherboard without a built esata port. The enclosure came with an esata adapter plate that internally connects to a sata port on the motherboard. This works, but only if I boot the PC up with the external drive switched on first. If I switch it on later, Vista doesn't see it. I understood that sata eand esata were both hot pluggable, so I'm not sure why this is not working. Does the motherboard need a esata port to work with a esata based external hdd enclosure (to allow hotplug capability). I can purchase a PCI express card that provides an esata port, but I don't know if thats going to make a difference.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI've had major problems with the above game. its been so bad that I now want to uninstall it but Vista doesn't seem to be able to do it.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI just removed Ipswitch's WS_FTP 2007, but the system sounds associated with the program did not uninstall with it. How do I manually remove the system sounds in Control Panel? Windows Vista Home Premium SP2
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