Windows 10: Problem Ejecting Sandisk Flash Drive

Whenever i try to eject my Sandisk flash drive, by right-clicking on it's icon and clicking on "Eject Cruzer",
I get an error window with the title, "Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device".
The message says, "Windows is unable to stop the device 'USB Mass Storage Device'.
Don't remove this device while it is still in use. Close any programs using this device and then remove it."

This only happens the first time I attempt to eject my flash drive since connecting it.
The second time I try to eject it, it always works.

Does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?
I know it's not a problem with my flash drive, because it works just fine on other computers.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the driver for the flash drive in the Device Manager, but that didn't work.

:)

 

Flash drive doesn't appear on PC

Sounds like you have a bad
Sandisk drive. Sorry, check out their support pages - hope you get lucky and its something simple.

Restart the computer with the drive plugged in. That's fixed usb thumb drive here when unplugged without ejecting that wouldn't work.

 

Eject flash drive in windows 10 giving "Still in use message" first time, second try is ok

Hi All, I am running windows 10 and am have a problem ejecting flash drives on the first attempt. I see the message that the drive is still in use but on the second attempt it works correctly. Is there a fix to allow the drive to be ejected on the first
attempt.

 

Hi retroboy87,

I don't why that's occurring, but just so you know, you should be able to configure the flash drives so they are safe to just pull out, rather than "safely removing them." I know this is not an answer, but more of a 'work-around' if needed. It should already be defaulted that way as well. More HERE.

 

The safely remove is there to make sure that all write buffers have been written. That is normally the case if you give it a couple of seconds. The 'false' busy signals can be ignored at that time.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I already have Quick Removal enabled.
I know I can just pull my flash drive out without safely removing it, but I want figure out what's causing this problem.
I'm fine with using Quick Removal in the mean time though.

 

Is any program using it?
I mean is it music that a media player is pointed to, is it being used to back up data?
Is it mounted in File Explorer?
You can also try running chkdsk in case it was pulled once when writing wasn't finished.

 

I have a GENPLUS USB-MSDC DISK A USB device with the same problem. There's no "quick removal" setting on the drivers panel. Neither is there a list of tasks

The only hint I have gotten from "troubleshooting" is that it's an older USB device that might not work with USB 3.0.... and I should plug it into a USB 2.0 port. (I'm not sure if I have such a device.)

 

You could use Process Explorer to see what is locking the drive. I find that it's often Explorer that's mucking up the works. I usually open task manager and restart Explorer and the drive will eject normally after that.

Process Explorer - Windows Sysinternals

 

If you have USB 3.0 ports, it's near 100% certain you have 2.0 ports. 3.0 ports are backward compatible with 2.0 devices. Generally, the 2.0 ports will have a black visible connection, and the 3.0 ports will be blue. The female ends. See if you have one and swap the device.

 

Agreed.

I've only ever had one incident involving Flash sticks.
However it happens ~50% of the time with USB HDDs (using W7 on my PCs).

The strange thing was that it was never a problem with W7 until MS released SP1.

It's gotten worse, as it used to be possible to kill the offending handles in Process Explorer and then eject the drive (without having to kill Windows Explorer).

 

i know this dosn't help, but if it say's something is using the disk why can't they (the O/S) just say what is using the disk with out having to go to process explorer or what ever if it is file explorer fine just say so

 

MS incompetence.
Apple and Linux Distros can do it, but Windows can't.
*Doh

A couple of years ago, when people were suggesting features for W10, I suggested a proper "USB Killer", but as you can see we didn't get one.

 

Lol, that'd be nice, wouldn't it? *Smile