External Hard Drive will not be release by XP

[Guest]

I have a new WD 120gig external hard drive with a USB connection. I plug it
in after the computer is booted. When I attempt to stop and remove it using
the safe removal icon on the lower right of the screen while the computer is
still powered up I get a message something like this "The 'generic hard
drive' can not be stopped now as it is use by a program. Try again later" I
have no program running at the time. The only way I can remove is to shut
down the computer and unplug and then restart the computer. Very time
consuming. Any solution?

 

[Mike Cawood, HND BIT]

I have a new WD 120gig external hard drive with a USB connection. I plug
it
in after the computer is booted. When I attempt to stop and remove it
using
the safe removal icon on the lower right of the screen while the computer
is
still powered up I get a message something like this "The 'generic hard
drive' can not be stopped now as it is use by a program. Try again later"
I
have no program running at the time. The only way I can remove is to shut
down the computer and unplug and then restart the computer. Very time
consuming. Any solution?

Does Task Manager show any applications running?
Mike.

 

[M.I.5¾]

I have a new WD 120gig external hard drive with a USB connection. I plug
it
in after the computer is booted. When I attempt to stop and remove it
using
the safe removal icon on the lower right of the screen while the computer
is
still powered up I get a message something like this "The 'generic hard
drive' can not be stopped now as it is use by a program. Try again later"
I
have no program running at the time. The only way I can remove is to shut
down the computer and unplug and then restart the computer. Very time
consuming. Any solution?
--

It is unwise to use write back cacheing (aka 'optimised for speed') with an
external drive. Far better to set it to write through cacheing (aka
'optimised for removal'). In this mode you don't need to use the safe
removal icon. You just pull the plug (provided it isn't in the middle of a
write of course. You can set this from the safely remove icon, which you
currently have.

 

[Ant]

I have a new WD 120gig external hard drive with a USB connection. I plug it
in after the computer is booted. When I attempt to stop and remove it using
the safe removal icon on the lower right of the screen while the computer is
still powered up I get a message something like this "The 'generic hard
drive' can not be stopped now as it is use by a program. Try again later" I
have no program running at the time. The only way I can remove is to shut
down the computer and unplug and then restart the computer. Very time
consuming. Any solution?

I had this problem before. I usually wait like an hour OR use Unlocker
program to see who is still using the HDD. Or to be safe, reboot or turn
off the machine and disconnect the connection.
--
"The ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind. The ant, sir, is
blowin' in the wind." --the misheard lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in
the Wind"
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Remove ANT from e-mail address: (e-mail address removed)
( ) or (e-mail address removed)
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

 

[Guest]

The task manager indicates nothing is running

 

[badwrc]

I hope somebody is still paying attention to this post. Do you have Norton?
I had the same problem and I got a utility that shows what programs have
handles on that drive. I found out it was the Norton protected recycle bin.
I removed the external drive from being 'protected'-- it's a backup drive-not
very likely I'll need to recover deleted files from it--- and now it removes
fine with the remove hardware icon.