USB "Safely Remove" error

[John Smith]

In the past I've used two USB devices which I habitually remove
without shutting XP down: the little reader that reads my camera's
memory card and a little 2gig flash memory I bought at Staples. The
Safely Remove feature worked OK with these.

Recently I also connnected a USB enclosure with an IDE hard drive
inside it to clone to. When I tried using the Safely Disconnect icon
on this drive I got this message "Exception occurred trying to run
shell32.dll, control_Rundll hotplug.dll". The balloon "You may safely
disconnect your device" does appear, and the temporary drive icon
disappears from the tray. Anyone know how to cure this? Do you think
it is REALLY safe to turn the drive off at that point? (that's a
backup clone of my c: drive, I wouldn't want to destroy data, I'd
really need the thing in a dire emergency). Also, now the same thing
happens with my other two disconnecable devices.
Remove no_spam to reply email

 

[Popeye]

In the past I've used two USB devices which I habitually remove
without shutting XP down: the little reader that reads my camera's
memory card and a little 2gig flash memory I bought at Staples. The
Safely Remove feature worked OK with these.

Recently I also connnected a USB enclosure with an IDE hard drive
inside it to clone to. When I tried using the Safely Disconnect icon
on this drive I got this message "Exception occurred trying to run
shell32.dll, control_Rundll hotplug.dll". The balloon "You may safely
disconnect your device" does appear, and the temporary drive icon
disappears from the tray. Anyone know how to cure this? Do you think
it is REALLY safe to turn the drive off at that point? (that's a
backup clone of my c: drive, I wouldn't want to destroy data, I'd
really need the thing in a dire emergency). Also, now the same thing
happens with my other two disconnecable devices.
Remove no_spam to reply email

Take a look at this neat, free little utility here:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html
Works much better than MS USB removal tool.
USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently
connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you
previously used.
For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device
name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage
devices), the date/time that device was added, Vendor ID, Product ID,
and more... USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that
you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently
connected to your computer. You can also use USBDeview on a remote
computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.

 

[Popeye]

In the past I've used two USB devices which I habitually remove
without shutting XP down: the little reader that reads my camera's
memory card and a little 2gig flash memory I bought at Staples. The
Safely Remove feature worked OK with these.

Recently I also connnected a USB enclosure with an IDE hard drive
inside it to clone to. When I tried using the Safely Disconnect icon
on this drive I got this message "Exception occurred trying to run
shell32.dll, control_Rundll hotplug.dll". The balloon "You may safely
disconnect your device" does appear, and the temporary drive icon
disappears from the tray. Anyone know how to cure this? Do you think
it is REALLY safe to turn the drive off at that point? (that's a
backup clone of my c: drive, I wouldn't want to destroy data, I'd
really need the thing in a dire emergency). Also, now the same thing
happens with my other two disconnecable devices.
Remove no_spam to reply email

Opps! name of free removal tool is USBdeview

 

[John Smith]

Take a look at this neat, free little utility here:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html
Works much better than MS USB removal tool.
USBDeview is a small utility that lists all USB devices that currently
connected to your computer, as well as all USB devices that you
previously used.
For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device
name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage
devices), the date/time that device was added, Vendor ID, Product ID,
and more... USBDeview also allows you to uninstall USB devices that
you previously used, and disconnect USB devices that are currently
connected to your computer. You can also use USBDeview on a remote
computer, as long as you login to that computer with admin user.

Seems to work pretty slick. Doesn't give that reassuring message "It's
now safe to remove your gizmo", but the drive disappears from Explorer
and it's icon is gone from the System Tray, so I guess it's OK to turn
the drive off. And no alarming Exception messages either.
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[Uwe Sieber]

In the past I've used two USB devices which I habitually remove
without shutting XP down: the little reader that reads my camera's
memory card and a little 2gig flash memory I bought at Staples. The
Safely Remove feature worked OK with these.

Recently I also connnected a USB enclosure with an IDE hard drive
inside it to clone to. When I tried using the Safely Disconnect icon
on this drive I got this message "Exception occurred trying to run
shell32.dll, control_Rundll hotplug.dll".

Probably some XP files are corrupt, a repair install seems
to be a good idea.

My commandline tool RemoveDrive can do the removal job too.
http://www.uwe-sieber.de/drivetools_e.html#RemoveDrive



Uwe