Safely remove hardware

[Guest]

I'm using a Sandisk cruzer 1gb usb flash memory device - works great.
Sometimes - not always- when I click on the safely remove hardware icon and
select the device, I get a message that says the device is busy and can not
be removed - try later. I try again and get same message. I'm only doing
simple file transfers and wait several minutes after a transfer before I try
to remove it. What is not working?

 

[Yves Leclerc]

You need to have all Explorer windows/DOS windows which are accessing the
drive letter for the Curzer closed.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply. With simple file tansfers everything works as expected.
I think I have isolated the times I do have a problem with the encrytion
software I am using. If I encrypt a file, save to the cruzer, close
everything down, try to remove cruzer using the "safely remove hardware
icon". I get the device is busy message. I will try to contact the encryption
software (Cruzerlock2) people.

 

[xlntxpert]

To find out which process is blocking a removable device, and kill it
is EASY.

First download the FREE Sysinternals Process Explorer(PE)

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Start PE and add the "Window Title" column under View - "Selec
Columns...",

and then do a Find - "Find Handle...", followed by a "Find DLL...".

Just type the root to the drive. If your device is R: you type R:\

and press Enter. If there are hits just click on one, and th
handle/DLL

is highlighted inside the process holding it. Then close the Lowe
Pane(Ctrl+L).

Enter or double-click THE PROCESS and see if there is a "Services
tab.

If so, the responsible service(s) therein must be stopped. It is NO
recommended

(in fact, usually impossible) to try to just kill the process.

To stop and start services issue Start - Run... services.msc

or issue NET START at a command line to get a list using the lon
"Display Name", and

NET STOP servicename
or
NET START servicename

Tip: You can use the short "Service" name from PE or the long "Displa
Name".

There is no general answer to which service(s) must be stopped. Us
your brain, guess and test.

If there is no "Services" tab, or no services are registered, tr
stopping the process

the way you would normally do. If it has a hidden window, you ca
activate it by

right clicking and select Window - "Bring to Front".

If neither of these work, try stopping the process by right clickin
and select

"Kill Process".

Note: "Kill Process Tree" also kills all processes started by th
parent(the selected process)