Safely Remove ESTATA Drives
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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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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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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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 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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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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Jul 30, 2007
I just reinstalled vista and the only difference to my machine is a 8600GTS graphics card (used to be a 7800GT) but this time around for some unknown reason I can see all my drives in the safetely remove hardware list (I dont want them in there). They were not showing before (previous installs) and I also notice that the windows update has a history that is telling me that the nvidia raid updates have failed and if I try them again it fails repeatedly. So how do I go about making sure my drivers are all correct and removing the raid config and my other drives from the above mentioned list.
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Jun 11, 2008
every morning when I turn on my laptop, I get the stupid balloon in the corner, and it wouldn't be a problem if it went away, but I have to click on the "x" to get rid of it. Computer's are supposed to make my life easier, not harder. This stupid useless balloon is not helping me, and I want to get rid of it. I know it has to be a registry entry somewhere. does anyone have an answer?
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Mar 26, 2008
On 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?
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Mar 25, 2010
I 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?
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Nov 30, 2008
I 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
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Sep 6, 2009
I 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
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May 26, 2008
how do i find windows vista sp1 and odownload it safely?
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Apr 7, 2009
My cousin is having an issue with her computer at the moment, when she goes to shut down the computer (start, turn off, turn off) and the computer then does what it needs to do to shut down safely, thens shuts down, a light comes back on. (I cant seem to be able to draw it so hopefully my explaination of it is ok.) It has a square ontop of a line in between two other squares. Her computer is an acer - aspire, intel, OS is windows xp.
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Feb 24, 2009
I have a Dell computer, had it about three weeks. I have two hard drives in a serial ATA Raid 0 stripe 500GB each. They are controlled by Intel matrix storage manager software. I want to have the two hard drives separate, like drive C and Drive D In the Bios I have two choices ATA or Raid, I have tried both ways to have them separate, however still can't. I have to say that I found this forum by chance, by goodness I am glad I did with drivers for my scanner and printer.
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May 12, 2008
I 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?
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Apr 8, 2009
I have an old Dell Dimension 8250 test PC that I would like to install Vista onto. However, it has no DVD drives. I cannot even boot from external USB drives (3.5" disk drive, external HDDs, and DVD burner drive -- CMOS doesn't see them and found out PC doesn't support bootable USB devices). However, I do have enough HDD space (30 GB free on second partition) to copy Vista DVD (or make an ISO file) onto it through network (will take a while).
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Apr 6, 2008
I've just got my new computer (Windows Vista Ultimate) and despite it coming with just one hard drive (if I'm not mistaken), when I open Computer, it displays two different hard drives: "OS_Install (C [102 GB free of 231 GB]" and "New Volume (D [465 GB free of 465 GB]".
Anyway, how, instead of working with this bizarre set-up, could I "merge" C: and D: into one hard drive (in Windows Explorer's eyes, at least) so that I do not have files arbitrarily split into two?
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Mar 7, 2009
Was just checking some information in my pc, and i noticed both of the Hard drives were quite hot, theres no problems with the fans or anything in there so im not sure if theres a problem or they just get like that. The pc has been on for alot of the day and alot has been installed on it since they are new.
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Mar 23, 2008
Why doesnt my CD/DVD drives show up in My Computer?! Everytime I reinstall VISTA it appears, but after a while theyre not there? And when I put XP on the machine, it never happens. Only in VISTA, first I thought theyre not supported but when I first install VISTA theyre there...then as I said...give it a month and they dont show up and when I put a disc in nothing happens and I cant even type in their location ex. D:/ WHY?
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Jul 20, 2009
I have been plagued with this problem on my Desktop, wherein the DVD drives go missing at random time intervals.
1> Checked the BIOS, both drives are shown (Tried the NATIVE and LEGACY settings)
2> Checked the cables and power supply ( Have put in a new PATA IDE cable for good measure)
3> Updated to SP2 thinking it would have a fix!
Searched Google and tried these Solutions
4> Uninstalled 3rd party Dvd writing software, which i had installed after discovering this problem. (Never had installed iTunes, roxio or zune software)
5> Checked registry values at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlClass{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
There were no Upper or lower Filters entries.
6> Tried the Auto Fix at "http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060" this doesn't work as it says Computer settings already match.
7> Then tried the auto Fix it.................
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Aug 29, 2008
i've googled this issue all over, and though i've found many people with the same problem, none of their 'fixes' have worked for me. hopefully you guys can come up with something (without reinstalling vista again!) to make it work. as a note, i'm running Ultimate x64 and all of my hardware specs are more than enough and i'm pretty positive that's not the issue.
suddenly, in the middle of normal usage, my drives were no longer recognized by my computer (optical and virtual drives). they do not show up in "Computer" or disk management. they are recognized by the BIOS. i had DaemonTools installed at the time, it was the latest version; i've read that could be an issue. i have absolutely no idea how to get my drives recognized again - i've got some work i really need to get done and haven't been able to fix this............
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Mar 23, 2008
since upgrading to Vista Home Premium I am no longer able to write to either of my SONY DVD RW AW_G170A CD/DVD Drives, trying to save a file tells me Incorrect function followed by, you do not have access to the folder'D:'. or 'E:'. See your administrator for access to this folder, or with other applications Im told the disc is not formatted, as I am the only administrator and the CDDVD's
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Feb 22, 2009
After performing a "Disc Check" I find that my 2 DVD/Cd ROM drives have stopped working. Device manager in control panel shows the following. "Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged (code 19)"
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Apr 9, 2009
Std user is running Vista Business with 4 GB RAM installed in an HP xw4400 workstation.I recently upgraded our small staff (10 employees) from WinXP Pro to Vista Business. I am handling all the griping about UAC, but had one question about USB ports I don't know the answer to.One of our researchers uses a pendrive in a USB port and constantly gets the UAC prompt. I know how to use the Properties of a program to have it run as an Administrator, but is there something comparable for USB drives?
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Jul 7, 2008
im looking into buying a blu ray drive in the next few months but i want one so that i can burn all my data currently on all my dvds. Not too bothered about playing high def movies atm coz i dont have any. I was looking at this one but i dont know whether or not it will write to dual layer 50gb disks. Pioneer BDR-202BK 4x BD-R/RE Blu-Ray Serial ATA Dual Layer DVD Writer - Black. also if i just plug it straight into my pc, will vista be able to burn to it? ie in windows media player?
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Jul 31, 2009
pc does not recognize my dvd drives,i have windows vista 32 bit,i went into help and support,which advised to go into devise manager and check to see if the dvd drives are listed which they are, then to right click on the dvd drives,properties, and click the troubleshoot tab,then the attached box pops up and i dont know where to go from there,
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