Unplugging External Drive

[Robert Lee]

I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,
that doesn't work.

What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the
"Safe to Remove" message?

 

[Tom Willett]

:I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
: without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
: Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often
time,
: that doesn't work.
:
: What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting
the
: "Safe to Remove" message?

You could lose all the data.
You need to lose Norton, instead.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,
that doesn't work.

What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the
"Safe to Remove" message?

A file on it could get garbled. But if you simply wait a couple of
minutes after last use of it, the risk is very small.

 

[Lem]

I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,
that doesn't work.

What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the
"Safe to Remove" message?

The danger in disconnecting a drive is that you could lose data.
Plainly, if you disconnect the drive while some application actually is
writing to it, you will have a problem.

You may, however, not know if data is being written to the drive
because, under some circumstances, Windows "caches" data to be written
on a disk in RAM. This permits the program generating the information
to generate data more rapidly than it could be written to the disk.
Periodically, Windows actually writes the cached data to the disk.

If you disconnect a drive for which caching is being used, you risk
losing some data.

In general, a USB drive should have caching turned off. Open Device
Manager, right click on the drive, and select Properties. Click on the
Policies tab. Select the top radio button to "Optimize for quick
removal" and OK your way out.

 

[Robert Lee]

Thanks to everyone who responded. Do you know what processes are preventing
me from getting the "Safe to Remove" message?

On some occasions, I have gotten the message after stopping: 1)
searchindexer, and 2) Norton Antivirus. But stopping those doesn't
consistently result in getting the "Safe to Remove" message. What other
software may be preventing me from getting the message?

 

[Lem]

Thanks to everyone who responded. Do you know what processes are preventing
me from getting the "Safe to Remove" message?

On some occasions, I have gotten the message after stopping: 1)
searchindexer, and 2) Norton Antivirus. But stopping those doesn't
consistently result in getting the "Safe to Remove" message. What other
software may be preventing me from getting the message?

Don't know what's causing your problem (although NAV is always suspect),
but you can create a desktop shortcut to "Safely Remove Hardware" --
http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2007/04/05/create_a_safely_remove_ha.html

 

[Rod Allan]

I do not know if this could practicably be correct,
but when I had a similar problem
I found when I moved a file link by a subsidiary program
away from the external drive, it exited OK.

For example, if I had ACDSee open and a ext drive file highlighted (but not
opened)
by ACDSee's selector, I could not exit properly.
I always now direct win explorer or any other file organiser away from the
ext drive.

 

[Guest]

I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often
time,
that doesn't work.

What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting
the
"Safe to Remove" message?

Apart from what the others are saying I found I was sometimes getting a
'drive still in use' message when I went to safely remove. This usually
simply meant I still had the drive letter highlighted in My Computer or
Windows Explorer. Open a file on another drive and you may find you can
then stop yours in the normal way.

There is also a handy little gadget called usbdeview which shows you what
usb devices are and have been connected, and whether they are safe to
remove. Can be quite an eye opener...

S

 

[Terry R.]

On 4/9/2010 11:21 AM On a whim, Robert Lee pounded out on the keyboard

I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it
without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton
Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,
that doesn't work.

What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the
"Safe to Remove" message?

Hi Robert,

Don't know where you are at with this, but did you try right clicking on
the device in Explorer and selecting "Eject"? This happens on my Palm
Pre and Eject is the only way it will release.


Terry R.