removing external hard drive

[Jo-Anne]

Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick
removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing
so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be
removed.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

 

[Tester]

Yes it is a good practice to do so. In a situation where you get that
message, I normally log off and then login again to see if all the
processes have finished doing what they were doing.

HD is HD and you can't afford to take risks with it. Better 5 minutes
late than sorry!

hth

 

[BillW50]

In

Yes it is a good practice to do so. In a situation where you get that
message, I normally log off and then login again to see if all the
processes have finished doing what they were doing.

HD is HD and you can't afford to take risks with it. Better 5 minutes
late than sorry!

hth

It is true, better safe than sorry. I have done it both ways and I don't
know, one out of 30 maybe, the file system will become corrupt if you
don't safety remove hardware. Then you have to run Chkdsk to fix it.

When it won't let you, some program is using the device. For me,
Explorer is usually holding it up. So I select another drive and then it
normally releases ok.

 

[Antares 531]

Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick
removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing
so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be
removed.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

I've had this same experience but find that if I move to a different
application, or select a different target in Windows Explorer, the
hard drive or USB thumb drive can be removed without having to go
through the "Safely Remove Hardware" process.

 

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, Bill and Tester! (I didn't receive Tester's post in Outlook
Express; I don't know why...) When you say to select another drive, do you
mean to double click on another one and then check Safely Remove Hardware
again? And what does logging off and in again mean--just that I should exit
Safely Remove Hardware and then bring it up again?

In the past, I've had particular trouble with Acronis True Image. One time,
it didn't "release" the external drive for over 4 hours, even though the
drive light was solid the whole time. That's the point when I started making
sure that my external drives were set for optimizing for quick removal.

Thank you again!

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne]

I've had this same experience but find that if I move to a different
application, or select a different target in Windows Explorer, the
hard drive or USB thumb drive can be removed without having to go
through the "Safely Remove Hardware" process.

Thank you, Antares! I'll definitely try selecting a different target, but I
probably will check the Safely Remove Hardware process again just to make
sure.

Jo-Anne

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick
removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing
so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be
removed.

Thank you!

Jo-Anne

There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more
thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know
what's got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it
myself, but it seems alright at first glance.

Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard
shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon
http://safelyremove.com/

Yousuf Khan

 

[Jo-Anne]

There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more
thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know what's
got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it myself,
but it seems alright at first glance.

Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard
shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon
http://safelyremove.com/

Yousuf Khan

Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well?

Jo-Anne

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well?

Jo-Anne

Give it a shot, it doesn't seem like you have to pay for it, if you
don't like it, just uninstall it.

Yousuf Khan

 

[BillW50]

Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well?

Jo-Anne

I am running it now and it is very nice (on both XP and Windows 7). The
trial version doesn't nag until after 30 days. To register they want 20
bucks. Which is probably well worth it.

Other features I like about it is that you don't have to disconnect the
device to re-enabled it again. And I purposely left Explorer open on an
USB drive as a test. Which won't allow the Windows to safely remove
because Explorer is using it. And Safely Remove closed the offending
Explorer and released the USB drive.

 

[BillW50]

In

Thank you, Bill and Tester! (I didn't receive Tester's post in Outlook
Express; I don't know why...) When you say to select another drive,
do you mean to double click on another one and then check Safely
Remove Hardware again? And what does logging off and in again
mean--just that I should exit Safely Remove Hardware and then bring
it up again?
In the past, I've had particular trouble with Acronis True Image. One
time, it didn't "release" the external drive for over 4 hours, even
though the drive light was solid the whole time. That's the point
when I started making sure that my external drives were set for
optimizing for quick removal.
Thank you again!

Hi Jo-Anne! Yes if Explorer is looking at the drive you want to remove,
Windows will tell you that it can't right now. So if you select another
drive to look at in Explorer, this should now allow Windows to safely
remove it.

Logging off? Yes logging off is like rebooting, except it logs you out
of Windows and returns you back to the Windows logon screen. This closes
all applications and when you log back into Windows again, you should
have no trouble safely removing any removable drive.

Acronis True Image? I have ATI Home 2009 and 2011. And both versions are
nearly the same. Sorry I bought the 2011 version now. And ATI has
trouble with restoring from some USB drives. So I don't trust ATI too
much.

I have better luck most of the time with Paragon (they have free
versions too, but I have lots of registered ones from them too). Paragon
also has adaptive restore (allows moving Windows to another machine),
drive alignment, and can clone the drive you are using while Windows is
still running.

ATI has the same thing as adaptive restore. Although it only comes with
the expensive Plus version or pack or whatever you want to call it. ATI
doesn't have drive alignment yet (very important on SSD drives), nor can
clone a drive while Windows is running.

 

[Jo-Anne]

In

Hi Jo-Anne! Yes if Explorer is looking at the drive you want to remove,
Windows will tell you that it can't right now. So if you select another
drive to look at in Explorer, this should now allow Windows to safely
remove it.

Logging off? Yes logging off is like rebooting, except it logs you out of
Windows and returns you back to the Windows logon screen. This closes all
applications and when you log back into Windows again, you should have no
trouble safely removing any removable drive.

Acronis True Image? I have ATI Home 2009 and 2011. And both versions are
nearly the same. Sorry I bought the 2011 version now. And ATI has trouble
with restoring from some USB drives. So I don't trust ATI too much.

I have better luck most of the time with Paragon (they have free versions
too, but I have lots of registered ones from them too). Paragon also has
adaptive restore (allows moving Windows to another machine), drive
alignment, and can clone the drive you are using while Windows is still
running.

ATI has the same thing as adaptive restore. Although it only comes with
the expensive Plus version or pack or whatever you want to call it. ATI
doesn't have drive alignment yet (very important on SSD drives), nor can
clone a drive while Windows is running.

Thank you again, Bill! I'll check into Paragon. Although I bought two copies
of ATI, I learned on one of the newsgroups that it's free if you buy certain
brands of external drives, including Western Digital, which is what I use.
On my latest computer, I installed the free version, and I don't see any
real difference between it and my paid-for one.

I've never logged off; but it's good to know that that should release my
hard drive if the occasion arises again.

Jo-Anne

 

[Jo-Anne]

I am running it now and it is very nice (on both XP and Windows 7). The
trial version doesn't nag until after 30 days. To register they want 20
bucks. Which is probably well worth it.

Other features I like about it is that you don't have to disconnect the
device to re-enabled it again. And I purposely left Explorer open on an
USB drive as a test. Which won't allow the Windows to safely remove
because Explorer is using it. And Safely Remove closed the offending
Explorer and released the USB drive.

Sounds good, Bill! I'll bookmark it for now.

Jo-Anne