Windows 10: Removing Hard Drive from device safely!

I can't remove my hdd without formatting, It's always showing the device is currently in use.

I've tried restarting windows explorer from task management, uninstalling/disabling the drive from device manager, restarting the system, but nothing works.

The hdd drive H isn't even showing in disk management.

Need a solution.




:)

 

Safely Remove Hardware - Windows 10

Hi Grant,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

I understand that you have concern about the how to safely removal of external device from Windows 10. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

I suggest you to provide you valuable suggestion in the feedback app.

1. Click on Search bar.

2. Type "Windows Feedback" without the quotes in the search bar and click on it.

3. Then provide your suggestion.

We can also removely safely the external pen drives or external hard drive through below steps.

1. Open File Explorer.

2. It will show the list of Drives available on the computer, then right click on the external drive which you want to remove safely.

3. The click on Eject option from the list.

Let us know if you need any further assistance on Windows related issues and we will be glad to help.

 

Cannot Safely Remove External Drives


Open Device Manager, find "disk drives" and your "external drive" in the list of devices, uninstall the driver for your hard drive and then you can safely remove it. The device driver for your external drive "SHOULD" reinstall automatically next time you want to use the drive.

 

USB Drives plugged in but No Safely Remove Icon in Tray, and


....no drives listed in Hardware List.

When I plug USB drives in, the Safely Remove Hardware icon does not appear in in system tray (its not hidden either)

First, I went to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Select which Icons Appear on the Taskbar...





.. and found it was already on

Next I tried using the solution in this post...

Solved No safely remove icon in tray any more after Windows 10 Anniversary up - Windows 10 Forums

...making a shortcut from "rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll", but when I run the shortcut, there are no devices listed...





(in this screenshot, you can see two USB drives in the Explorer window in the BG but nothing listed in the panel. )

NOTE: They are listed in Disk Management and in the Device Manager under Disk Drives, and they function just fine..
I think the Safely Remove Hardware icon is not appearing because despite being detected and showing in Explorer, Device Manager and Disk Management, its not being listed in this panel for some reason.


NOTE2: I recently installed a new motherboard.

ASUS B150M-A
CPU Intel Core i5 - 6500 (3.2 GHz)
Mem 4096 MB (DDR4 - 2133)

I am 100% sure it was working before that, but I cannot say for sure if it was still working after that.
A friend suggested that it might be a setting in BIOS, but I have looked through it and nothing stands out.

Any suggestions would be welcome.


ETA: this is not the system listed in my System Specs page. That is another computer which I still have.