Windows 10: EJECTING EXTERNAL DRIVE SAFELY

When I try to eject the external drive from my laptop, I get the following message:


"This device is currently in use. Close any program or windows that might be using the device, and then try again."


I tried to clear the message by checking over and over if any program or windows was open, but no luck. Any help will be appreciated.


Thank you.


Kirti Shah

:)

 

Cannot eject safely an external USB drive

Hello,
Recently I bought one "WD Elements" 1TB external drive for data storage. When attachet it to the pc, it was found by the file explorer, it is already NTFS formated, one whole partition.
On it found "WD Smartware pro trial" installer and an 'autorun.inf' file.
Nothing was written to the drive yet. Then I wanted to eject it, but right-click in the file explorer was not the option 'eject', so I opened the 'show hidden icons' and cliced on 'safely remove/eject' the drive, got a notice as on attached screenshot.
Disabled AVG antivirus, Ccleaner monitoring, File indexing, still could not eject it.
In devices and printers tried to remove the drive - failed, ran troubleshooter, it fixed some problem, again tried to eject safely, still warning from the system.
Finally had to shut down the computer to disconnect the drive.
Is the 'autorun.inf' file creating the trouble ?
I do not intend to use the program "WD Smartware pro trial" it is not installed, this is only the installer, can I delete both the installer and the 'autorun.inf'.
After I overcome this problem, I want to re-partition the drive
So here I ask for your help, please.


Thanks

 

Cannot eject safely usb external drive

Hello,
The problem of beeing unable to eject the usb drive safely still exists, the only way I found (temporarily) is to disable it in the device manager, but then the change asks to restart the computer, if I do not restart, the drive is unabled. It seems I will have to live with it until some solution, however I want to start using it, which brings me to some qurstions. I re-formated the whole partition, nothing copied to it yet,
From the file explorer when I click properties I see there are already 220 MB on the disk, pls see attached screenshot


In Disk Management I see unalocated space 2 MB but the whole partition is Blue, pls see screenshots attached.
Some explanations please.





And finaly, if you have any ideas to solve the ejecting safely, pls notify me.
Thanks for answers and explanations.

 

Windows10 randomly refuses to safely eject external disks

Hello there,

More than 11 months ago I expose in these forums some problems in Windows10.

One of them is the denial to safely eject external disks.

Here is what happens: I connect one of my external disks to my pc, then I move/copy/delete/edit/view some files, and later, after closing EVERYTHING, Windows10 refuses to safely eject my disk. It replies, "Windows can't stop your 'Volume' device because
a program is still using it".

Windows doesn't tell me what program is employing my drive. And I know for sure there is nothing employing it.

That issue happens randomly. I mean, sometimes I can safely eject the disk, and sometimes I cannot.

Today I downloaded from Microsoft the app named "procexp64.exe" which showed me what is employing my external disk.

And, they are Windows processes only!

Let's say my disk's root ID is "M:\"

The Process Explorer found:

• Four "system" processes with open files in M:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$Txf.........
• Two "explorer" processes with open directory M:\

Hence, Windows doesn't allow me to safely eject my external disk because Windows forgot it was itself the one using my disk!

Almost 1 year has passed, and the issue still persists.

Annoying!