Safely remove hardware is balky

[Happy]

I have an external HD. After backing up to it, I like to unplug it. However,
when using the "safely remove hardware" icon, I generally get the msg
"Device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later". Later,
(an hour later) I get the same message.
Any thoughts?

 

[Smoker]

I have an external HD. After backing up to it, I like to unplug it.
However, when using the "safely remove hardware" icon, I generally get the
msg "Device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later".
Later, (an hour later) I get the same message.
Any thoughts?

If it's a USB drive just unplug it anyhow and see if your backup was
completed. If so ignore the buggy msg. you are getting.

 

[Uwe Sieber]

I have an external HD. After backing up to it, I like to unplug it. However,
when using the "safely remove hardware" icon, I generally get the msg
"Device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later". Later,
(an hour later) I get the same message.
Any thoughts?

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\Harddisk4\DP(1)0-0+11. A significant part like
'disk4' is good enough.

My commandline tool RemoveDrive can prepare drives for save
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.
With param -h it tries to show open handles, but this is
experimental. Sample:
removedrive u: -h

Deactivating System Restore for this drive is also an good idea
(right click My Computer -> Properties, here tab 'System Restore').


Uwe

 

[Happy]

Thanks! I'll try these answers at next opportunity.