External USB disk reading/writing when not connected

[Gustaf]

I got a question about my Iomega USB disks (Silver Series). My system is
a fully updated Windows XP.

When I try to unplug the disk, I get the annoying message that the disk
can't be stopped right now. I learned to use Process Explorer to find
the thread that was still accessing the disk, and close or kill the
related program. This works on my laptop (in that case, Microsoft Live
Messenger was accessing the disc for some reason). But on the desktop, I
can't find anything except the system related threads that access the
disk. So I just unplug the USB cable anyway, or turn off the computer.

After I do that, the USB disk is still active somehow. I can hear it
reading/writing things every few seconds. I wonder if I may damage the
drive (or the data stored on it) if I turn it off at this point. I'm not
sure if this also happens on the laptop, after I successfully unplug it
from the system, but maybe that worth testing.

Gustaf

 

[CWatters]

I got a question about my Iomega USB disks (Silver Series). My system is
a fully updated Windows XP.

When I try to unplug the disk, I get the annoying message that the disk
can't be stopped right now. I learned to use Process Explorer to find
the thread that was still accessing the disk, and close or kill the
related program. This works on my laptop (in that case, Microsoft Live
Messenger was accessing the disc for some reason). But on the desktop, I
can't find anything except the system related threads that access the
disk. So I just unplug the USB cable anyway, or turn off the computer.

After I do that, the USB disk is still active somehow. I can hear it
reading/writing things every few seconds. I wonder if I may damage the
drive (or the data stored on it) if I turn it off at this point. I'm not
sure if this also happens on the laptop, after I successfully unplug it
from the system, but maybe that worth testing.

Gustaf

I've had the same problem with a USB drive. Windows seems convinced some
program is still accessing the drive so it cann't be stopped - even when
Explorer is the only "program" to have been used on the drive.