External USB HD can't be removed safely

Hi,

I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my microSD
cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore was disabled
for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of what I do,
Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.

I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up and
shut down.

XP does not have this behavior.

Anti-virus program?
Paging turned on for that drive?
Do you have a window open on the drive? XP would gladly close such a window
when you asked to remove a drive, but Vista would not.
Any third party apps that might have a file open?

Earle

"Jay Moore" <> wrote in message
news8B8069C-0FA9-42FF-8653-...
> Hi,
>
> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore was
> disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of what
> I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>
> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
> and shut down.
>
> XP does not have this behavior.
>

"Earle Horton" <> wrote

>> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
>> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
>> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
>> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore
>> was disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of
>> what I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>>
>> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
>> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
>> and shut down.

> Anti-virus program?
> Paging turned on for that drive?
> Do you have a window open on the drive? XP would gladly close such a
> window when you asked to remove a drive, but Vista would not.
> Any third party apps that might have a file open?

I'm using a WD MyBook 500 gb external USB hard drive and have been having
that problem now with increasing frequency. The culprit (I just caught it in
the act a few minutes ago) is a program called "svchost.exe".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svchost


--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Checked that.
Nope.
Nope, no windows open.
No applications open whatsoever.

"Earle Horton" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Anti-virus program?
> Paging turned on for that drive?
> Do you have a window open on the drive? XP would gladly close such a
> window when you asked to remove a drive, but Vista would not.
> Any third party apps that might have a file open?
>
> Earle
>
> "Jay Moore" <> wrote in message
> news8B8069C-0FA9-42FF-8653-...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
>> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
>> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
>> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore
>> was disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of
>> what I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>>
>> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
>> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
>> and shut down.
>>
>> XP does not have this behavior.
>>

>
> I'm using a WD MyBook 500 gb external USB hard drive and have been having
> that problem now with increasing frequency. The culprit (I just caught it
> in the act a few minutes ago) is a program called "svchost.exe".
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svchost
>

that is about as useless as saying "my car stopped running, turns out it
needs gas"

The meaning of "safe to remove device" for external USB drives is that any
data written to the drive has truly finished being written, the cache has
been flushed and no data lose will take place when you unplug the drive.
If you are certain that writing to the drive is finished, then it is
probably safe to unplug the drive, after at least once using the safely
remove device utility.
Logging off, by my experience, should be sufficient to flush the cache and
allowing you to "safely" remove the drive.

Sometimes I log off and log back on and the safe to remove drive now works.
I would not bother to reboot the computer, unless I had some very special
important data that I could no take any risk whatsoever that I might lose it
and I don't have it backed up anywhere else.

"Jay Moore" <> wrote in message
news8B8069C-0FA9-42FF-8653-...
> Hi,
>
> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore was
> disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of what
> I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>
> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
> and shut down.
>
> XP does not have this behavior.
>

Jay Moore wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore
> was disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless
> of what I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>
> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
> and shut down.
>
> XP does not have this behavior.
>

Go to device manager and look at the properties of the drive under
Policies and read those options. If it is external, you should have an
option, but if not the explanation under quick removal should help.

Clark

"Jay Moore" <> wrote in message
news8B8069C-0FA9-42FF-8653-...
> Hi,
>
> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore was
> disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of what
> I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>
> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
> and shut down.
>
I have the same drive (Passport Essential), using Vista Home Premium. Every
once in a while I get the same message. So far, I go through the motion of
making sure that nothing is open or running and then I get the OK to remove
the drive--once in a while I have to go through this a couple of times.
MLD
> XP does not have this behavior.
>

"MLD" <> wrote:

>
>"Jay Moore" <> wrote in message
>news8B8069C-0FA9-42FF-8653-...
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just bought a WD Passport 320gb external USB hard drive. It works fine
>> EXCEPT, I can try to safely remove and it tells me the drive is still in
>> use. There's no explorer processes running...I can safely remove my
>> microSD cards just fine. I already checked to make sure system restore was
>> disabled for that drive. Indexing is also disabled. But regardless of what
>> I do, Vista insists that drive is in use when it's not.
>>
>> I really don't wanna pull the plug or reboot EVERY TIME I want to remove
>> this because i'd spend more time waiting for this trainwreck to boot up
>> and shut down.
>>
>I have the same drive (Passport Essential), using Vista Home Premium. Every
>once in a while I get the same message. So far, I go through the motion of
>making sure that nothing is open or running and then I get the OK to remove
>the drive--once in a while I have to go through this a couple of times.
>MLD

I just yank it. I don't worry about "safely remove".

On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:21:12 -0500, Jay Moore wrote:

>>
>> I'm using a WD MyBook 500 gb external USB hard drive and have been having
>> that problem now with increasing frequency. The culprit (I just caught it
>> in the act a few minutes ago) is a program called "svchost.exe".
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svchost
>>
>
> that is about as useless as saying "my car stopped running, turns out it
> needs gas"

No, it's more useless.

Svchost is a utility that runs a large number of different programs...

It's closer to saying that "my car stopped running, turns out it needs
something"

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom