USB drive or external hard drive

[KeeKee]

I have Windows XP and Vista.

I always go through "safely remove hardware" before pulling off USB
drive on XP. However, I have been trying to
do the same on Vista, it seems that I cannot do the same as XP. For
instance, I plug in my USB on Vista and it appears as H drive on
Vista, when I am ready to do "safely remove hardware", I don't see the
device drive H is on the "Safely remove hardware" window, so I cannot
stop the H drive. I am concerned about the Vista hardware.
Could anyone shed a light?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Jon]

I have Windows XP and Vista.

I always go through "safely remove hardware" before pulling off USB
drive on XP. However, I have been trying to
do the same on Vista, it seems that I cannot do the same as XP. For
instance, I plug in my USB on Vista and it appears as H drive on
Vista, when I am ready to do "safely remove hardware", I don't see the
device drive H is on the "Safely remove hardware" window, so I cannot
stop the H drive. I am concerned about the Vista hardware.
Could anyone shed a light?
Thanks in advance.

It initially comes up as something like 'USB Mass Storage device' or
something similar, I believe.

The H: should then appear on the next screen after you click 'stop'

 

[bread_voter]

I had the same problem, infact I got blue dump screen thing, so I dont
uninstall from safely remove icon anymore. If your drive letters
disappears then its likley your drive wont be seen in windows either as the
driver is missing. So go to device manager disable the device (usb hard
drive) then unplug it. Close down vista then restart it plug in your usb
device (hard drive) then vista will recognise it as new hardware looking for
the driver. Vista sometimes I find has difficulty looking for the driver,
doing this way will relocatre the driver and you should have your drive
letter back. As for stopping the drive via the safely remove icon I don
bother now, I just shut down pc, vista then sees my drive when I switch pc
back on.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, KeeKee.

In Disk Management (and a few other places in WinXP/Vista/Win7), we can set
Policies for removable devices to Optimize for either "Quick removal" or for
"Performance". Quick removal does not use caching, so it is almost always
safe to remove the device, without waiting for "safely remove".

There are several ways to run Disk Management. My favorite is to just press
or click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter. You'll need to furnish
Administrator credentials because this is a powerful utility that can do as
much harm as good if used carelessly.

In Disk Management, the lower part of the screen shows the Graphical View.
Each physical disk shows as a single graphic bar, divided into the volumes
on that disk. Right-click in the far left column (to choose the whole disk
and not just the single volume Drive H:, for example), choose Properties,
and then the Policies tab.

Even with Quick removal, do not unplug the disk until the light stops
blinking, because that means that the latest read or write operation has not
completed and your data can be lost or corrupted.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[KeeKee]

Hi, KeeKee.

In Disk Management (and a few other places in WinXP/Vista/Win7), we can set
Policies for removable devices to Optimize for either "Quick removal" or for
"Performance".  Quick removal does not use caching, so it is almost always
safe to remove the device, without waiting for "safely remove".

There are several ways to run Disk Management.  My favorite is to just press
or click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc" and press Enter.  You'll need to furnish
Administrator credentials because this is a powerful utility that can do as
much harm as good if used carelessly.

In Disk Management, the lower part of the screen shows the Graphical View..
Each physical disk shows as a single graphic bar, divided into the volumes
on that disk.  Right-click in the far left column (to choose the whole disk
and not just the single volume Drive H:, for example), choose Properties,
and then the Policies tab.

Even with Quick removal, do not unplug the disk until the light stops
blinking, because that means that the latest read or write operation has not
completed and your data can be lost or corrupted.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

Thank you so much !!!!
I appreciate you helping me to solve my problem.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, KeeKee.

You're welcome. And thanks for the feedback! ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64