Problems ejecting flash drives

F

fox64

Member
On this one old desktop computer when I try to safely eject a flashdrive It wont let me. It says something like "cant eject.generic volume is not shutdown try latter". or some thing like that. when it does this I have to just pull out the flash drive and that is risky.

my questions are-

Can you just turn off your computer, then pull out the flashdrive? Is this a good solution?

What is the simplest way around this problem?
 
If you shutdown the computer then you can certainly remove the drive.

What OS are you using? In Win 7 & Win 8 there is an option you can set called "Quick removal". Open Device Manager and find the flashdrive there. Right-click and select Properties the click on the Policies tab. You'll see the "Quick removal" option there. Enabling it will disable write caching for removable devices. That will cause a performance decrease but will allow you to remove devices without the need to use "Safely eject". However, you need to make sure the flashdrive is not being accessed when you pull it so make sure the activity light (if it has one) is not blinking.
 
Make sure you don't have any open files from the drive or things like explorer windows, etc.

Shutting down the PC works but sounds inconvenient. The main reason for the 'eject' function is to finalize writes on the drive to avoid file system corruption.
 
I've never paid attention to the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" tool. I have yanked USB flash drives, external hard drives and whatever else has a USB connector on it without ever having a problem. No one I know uses the "Safe Eject" tool either, and none of them have ever had problems with losing data or ruining the USB device. For me the tool is something like the safety cap on pill bottles.
 
WhoX said:
I've never paid attention to the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" tool. I have yanked USB flash drives, external hard drives and whatever else has a USB connector on it without ever having a problem. No one I know uses the "Safe Eject" tool either, and none of them have ever had problems with losing data or ruining the USB device. For me the tool is something like the safety cap on pill bottles.
Click to expand...

Sounds lucky, I've seen a few corrupt volumes from people where the next time it's plugged in you are greeted with a 'This device needs to be formatted before continuing'. Usually a chkdsk /r sorts it out (nix the file(s) that wasn't/weren't fully transferred) but I'm usually hesitant after transferring a bunch of data to it as a result. Plus, the transfer indicator is not always accurate. Maybe it's been fixed since but a lot of the time the transfer will say it's finished before the data actually makes it to the device.
 
beers said:
... Plus, the transfer indicator is not always accurate. Maybe it's been fixed since but a lot of the time the transfer will say it's finished before the data actually makes it to the device.
Click to expand...
This may be due to write caching which is disabled if you select the "Quick removal" option I mentioned above.
 
I'm another one of those people that don't do the safely remove hardware and have never had an issue with any of my usb drives.
 
I'll just wait several seconds after I finish a transfer before removing it. I've been pulling out flash drives for 5+ years and my external HDD for 2 without ever safely removing it. Never had a single issue.
 
I'm paranoid and use the safe eject feature all the time. Would not want corrupt data. Tip #201: Do not use cut/paste on large files. If something goes wrong like a power failure your original file is screwed.
 
New strange problem.

The safely remove hardware icon is missing from the lower screen tray thing.

Two questions.

1-Can you go to "my computer", then select the flashdrive(in this case removeible disc J), then click on the thing that says "eject this disk"?
Is this a proper alternative way to safely remove a flash drive incase I cant get the other icon back?

2-where did it go,how do you get it back?

My concern with using the "eject this disk" option in the "systems task" box in "my computer" is that that the little message that says something like "it is now safe to remove mass storage device" dosnt show up when I do it this way.

To some it up.
Is clicking the "eject this disk" option in the "systems task" box in "my computer" a good way to safely eject a usb flashdrive?
 
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