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Unlike Many, I am a big fan of Safely Removing External Harddisks, USB Drives and anything that comes with a dialogue of Safely Remove Hardware. See this Link if you wonder why I do that.. Anyhow, lately, I have been noticing that It is not working, everytime. Every once in a while,after use when I try to safely remove the disk. Nothing happens. I keep on clicking the button. But the message "Your Device is now safe to remove..blah" is not showing..

My Question is:

  1. Why isn't it working everytime.
  2. What ovverides my command to remove that device.
  3. Is there any way I can close all the handles opened to the files in the usb device and safely remove the device.
  4. Will Explicitly(using commandline or somethin) closing the handles might cause any data corruption or hardware damage.
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Augustus Francis
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  • Have you tried the Eject option? – Yass Sep 21 '13 at 12:24
  • What kind of Windows do you mention? In Windows XP and in Windows 7 the dialog appears as a notification on the taskbar below, on Vista it is a little window that appears on the center of the display. – Doktoro Reichard Sep 21 '13 at 12:30
  • Thanks @yassarikhan786 .Yes, The removable disk is still there.. Well there is a difference between [safely remove and eject](http://superuser.com/questions/254744/what-is-the-difference-between-safely-remove-and-eject?lq=1) – Augustus Francis Sep 21 '13 at 12:31
  • I am using Win8. @DoktoroReichard. And I could tell if the deed is done..:).. But it is not – Augustus Francis Sep 21 '13 at 12:32
  • @AugustusFrancis - Oh ok. As Doktoro has mentioned, there will probably be some process started by the drive, which isn't being closed. – Yass Sep 21 '13 at 12:36
  • I finally gave up on trying to "safely remove" the backup drive from my laptop USB port (Windows Vista). Now I sleep the laptop and then wait 10 seconds until I hear the drive power off, then unplug. (Note that, perversely, the drive must be turned on for this to work. If not it tends to *power up* when you sleep the box, so I reference the drive if need be to turn its power light on.) – Daniel R Hicks Sep 21 '13 at 12:43
  • (Note that the above may not be safe if the drive is "optimized for speed" rather than "quick removal".) – Daniel R Hicks Sep 21 '13 at 12:50
  • @Daniel In fact, it isn't safe, unless you can grant Explorer, any antivirus, or extrusive program like Excel isn't using any of your files in there. – Doktoro Reichard Sep 21 '13 at 12:51
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    @DoktoroReichard - Any active I/O will be quiesced when the system sleeps -- all buffers will be flushed, etc. – Daniel R Hicks Sep 21 '13 at 22:29

1 Answers1

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  1. It might be working, it just is closing programs that require access to files inside the removable drive.

  2. Eventually there might be some damaged settings, but usually that doesn't happen. It will fail if you have a program that opened a file inside the drive and needs to use it (i.e. doesn't store it in memory) (e.g. Excel, Word, etcetera)

  3. Ejecting the device is one way, removing it is another, but these will not be able to safely eject your drive. Unless you close the programs that are using resources from the drive, there is no other way.

  4. Explicitly (as if closing the programs, the right way) then no.

There are good applications to detect what programs are keeping you from closing your drive. An instance of it is UnLocker. A short description of the program is the following:

Ever had such an annoying message given by Windows? The file is in use by another program or user. Unlocker is the solution!

  1. Simply right click the folder or file and select Unlocker
  2. If the folder or file is locked, a window listing of lockers will appear
  3. Simply click Unlock All and you are done!
Doktoro Reichard
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  • Thanks. But, When I meant *Explicitly* is that, Is there any command line tools.. any 3rd party softwares to do this. Also I tried waiting for some time after clicking but it just isn't working. – Augustus Francis Sep 21 '13 at 12:36
  • There was something for OSX, I'll look for something like it for Windows (I remember "What's keeping me" or something like this). A program might ultimately hogging resources in the drive. You can be sure the drive was ejected by looking into **My Computer**. If the drive was removed, then you wouldn't be able to see it. – Doktoro Reichard Sep 21 '13 at 12:40
  • I do remember that certain notifications can be hidden in Windows. Never tried to hide the Safely Remove ones, but if you don't see the drive in Explorer after removing it, that could be your problem. – Doktoro Reichard Sep 21 '13 at 12:49