External hard drive

[Guest]

Please advise me the correct way to disconnect my external hard drive which I
am using occasionally to access certain documents copied from my new computer
which has been taken in for warranty repair/replacement.

When I plug it into the USB port of this (old) computer, I flick on the
switch and it all works perfectly. When I'm finished with it, should I turn
off its power switch first, or use the "safely remove hardware" option first.
I noticed I got the following event log warning this morning and think I
only used the on/off switch.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Ftdisk
Event Category: Disk
Event ID: 57
Date: 2007/09/24
Time: 11:04:56 AM
User: N/A
Computer: PVT-2228B675042
Description:
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 be 00 ......¾.
0008: 02 00 00 00 39 00 04 80 ....9..€
0010: 00 00 00 00 0e 00 00 c0 .......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

The computer shop where I bought it said I didn't need to use the "Safely
remove hardware" button but after the mess they've made of my new computer,
I'm not sure I believe them! Thanks for any advice.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

Yes, NTFS holds back some write accesses for a long time
period. Therefore it's a good idea to use the 'safe removal'
facility to flush all data.
The removal policy 'optimize for quick removal' is no help
because it has no effect on NTFS formatted drives.


Uwe

 

[Mike Hall - MVP]

Use the 'Safely remove hardware'.. this checks that there is no activity
between the drive and the computer, which might otherwise corrupt
information were the process to be stopped by essentially pulling the plug..

Please advise me the correct way to disconnect my external hard drive
which I
am using occasionally to access certain documents copied from my new
computer
which has been taken in for warranty repair/replacement.

When I plug it into the USB port of this (old) computer, I flick on the
switch and it all works perfectly. When I'm finished with it, should I
turn
off its power switch first, or use the "safely remove hardware" option
first.
I noticed I got the following event log warning this morning and think I
only used the on/off switch.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Ftdisk
Event Category: Disk
Event ID: 57
Date: 2007/09/24
Time: 11:04:56 AM
User: N/A
Computer: PVT-2228B675042
Description:
The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may
occur.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 be 00 ......¾.
0008: 02 00 00 00 39 00 04 80 ....9..€
0010: 00 00 00 00 0e 00 00 c0 .......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

The computer shop where I bought it said I didn't need to use the "Safely
remove hardware" button but after the mess they've made of my new
computer,
I'm not sure I believe them! Thanks for any advice.

--


Mike Hall
MS MVP Windows Shell/User
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the advice. This just serves to confirm in my mind that there
was something very wrong with my new computer which has gone back for
warranty repair, because the "safely remove hardware" tool would always show
a message that the USB mass storage device was still busy even though it had
been inactive for ages. It never reached a point where it was "safe".
That's why I began to think it was correct to just flick the off switch. Then
it would produce "write delay failed" messages.

Glad to say this old faithful (slow) computer is working fine! Many thanks
again! This has all been a huge learning curve and these forums are such a
help.

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

If there is a Windows Explorer window still open to a folder on the drive it
is busy.
If any other application has a file on the drive open the drive is still
busy.

 

[Guest]

In the case of the dodgy new computer, there would be nothing still open and
I would still get the message, I checked. Don't seem to have the problem
with this old computer, so I have to hope and pray they sort out the other
machine properly and finally - They've confirmed it has bad RAM and they're
also sending back the HD to the manufacturers. It's over 7 days since
purchase, so they won't swop out the parts at the shop, despite the fact that
I have been complaining about it and taking it in since the first week! I
have no faith in them at all but they got my money! Thanks again.

 

[Unknown]

Always,always do the 'safe to remove' routine. This guarantees the
read/write heads are 'parked' and bumping or banging into the hard drive
will not cause the heads to contact the disks causing damage.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

SysInternals ProcessExplorer:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

The ProcessExplorer is great for discovering which application
holds an open handle to a drive. Press Ctrl+F and enter the
drive letter like U:.
I've often seen that it cannot resolve drive letters, so you
have to search for the DOS device name of the drive, something
like \Device\HarddiskVolume1. A significant part like
'Volume1' is good enough.

My commandline tool RemoveDrive can prepare drives for safe
removal:
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/files/removedrive.zip
If it fails it shows the DOS device name to search for in
the ProcessExplorer too.

But it happens that the ProcessExplorer cannot find open handles
because they are held by a process that is deeper in the system
than the ProcessExplorer can look. This is typical for anti virus,
anti spyware, anti anything software.

The XP indexing service can cause it on USB hard disks.

There are reports that a network share on an USB drive prevents
the removal. The share must be deleted then...


Uwe