Windows 10: Trying to safely eject my flash drive- keeps saying it's "currently in use"

When I tried to "safely eject" my flash drive, I got the message that it was in use and to stop any programs that are using it it sure would be nice if it actually listed the program that is supposedly using it. Eventually I opened disk management, then checked if it noted anything on there, and then pressed the eject option from there. All it did was basically remove the device from being listed on there- I didn't get that "ok to safely remove device now...." message. So I have no idea if that means I can safely remove it or not. Like, does doing that clicking the eject option from the dis

:)

 

Missing Eject in "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" List

I use to be able to eject my USB drive via "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" with list as below:

- Open Devices and Printers
- Eject Data Traveler 111
- USB Drive (D
- Eject My Passport Ultra
- My Passport (E

However recently the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" list seems corrupted and shows:

- Open Devices and Printers
- USB Drive (D

- My Passport (E

with { - USB Drive (D } and { - My Passport (E } are grayed out.

Currently the only way for me is go to file explorer and right click the removable drive and click Eject.

Please help!

 

Windows 10 cannot "Safe Eject" USB drive

Any one of the software products you've installed on your machine could be causing the problem. Microsoft could always give that excuse. ;-)

I'm having a similar issue where the flash drive will not eject the first time, but if you eject it again immediately after, the eject operation will be successful. Happens ~75% of the time.

You could try to see if any programs are holding onto the flash drive:

• Download and run
  Process Explorer.
• Press Ctrl+F.
• Type the drive letter of your flash drive, followed by a colon and a backslash (e.g. "E:\")
• Click Search.

 

Ejecting Hard Drives and Flash Drives .....

Is it safe to keep hard drives and flash drives connected all the time (Windows 10), even when shutting down everyday ... ? Or should I use the Eject feature to be safe ... ?