What other ways are there to remove a harddrive?

[Guest]

Normally you would go to the start bar and tell it to remove hardware safely,
but that option was disabled by accident because the local group policy
disabled certain things, such as changing anything on the start bar. What
other ways are there to remove a flash drive safely? Does telling it to
eject in My Computer do it or do I still have to tell it to remove safely
somehow?

 

[Steve N.]

Normally you would go to the start bar and tell it to remove hardware safely,
but that option was disabled by accident because the local group policy
disabled certain things, such as changing anything on the start bar. What
other ways are there to remove a flash drive safely? Does telling it to
eject in My Computer do it or do I still have to tell it to remove safely
somehow?

Eject works fine.

Steve N.

 

[Richard in AZ]

Zach, you would get more help if you use correct terms. A flash drive is
not a "hard drive". The only way to remove a hard drive is to open the
case, remove the screws and cables and pull it out.

Now as to your Flash Drive. If your group policy forbids changing things in
the "System Tray", you should first ask your IT group if that can be
changed. If not, close any file action on that drive, wait for the light on
your flash drive to go out for several seconds and then just pull the Flash
Drive out. The shut-down option in the system tray is to give the drive
time to stop any data transfer. You can do the same thing by closing any
file management action and waiting a reasonable time.

: Normally you would go to the start bar and tell it to remove hardware
safely,
: but that option was disabled by accident because the local group policy
: disabled certain things, such as changing anything on the start bar. What
: other ways are there to remove a flash drive safely? Does telling it to
: eject in My Computer do it or do I still have to tell it to remove safely
: somehow?

 

[Alias]

The only way to remove a hard drive is to open the
case, remove the screws and cables and pull it out.

Really? And how, exactly, would this apply to an external hard drive or
an hard drive in an external case, both of which connect via USB?

Alias

Use the Reply to Sender feature of your news reader program to email me.
Utiliza Responder al Remitente para mandarme un mail.

 

[John Wunderlich]

Normally you would go to the start bar and tell it to remove
hardware safely, but that option was disabled by accident because
the local group policy disabled certain things, such as changing
anything on the start bar. What other ways are there to remove a
flash drive safely? Does telling it to eject in My Computer do it
or do I still have to tell it to remove safely somehow?

Right-click on the USB drive, "Properties", "Hardware" Tab,
Select the drive, "Properties", "Policies"...
Then select the "Optimize for quick removal" box. According to the
description, "This setting disables write caching on the disk and in
Windows so you can disconnect this device without using the Safe
Removal Icon...

HTH,
John

 

[Gary]

As you said it would have the key word "external".

 

[Unk]

Normally you would go to the start bar and tell it to remove hardware safely,
but that option was disabled by accident because the local group policy
disabled certain things, such as changing anything on the start bar. What
other ways are there to remove a flash drive safely? Does telling it to
eject in My Computer do it or do I still have to tell it to remove safely
somehow?

Your headers show Windows 2000. Optimize for quick removal is not available in Win2k
Windows 2000 does include an option to enable/disable write caching

Right-click "My Computer", Properties, Hardware Tab, Device Manager.
Expand "Disk Drives", Right-click the USB flash drive, Properties.
To disable write caching, click the Disk Properties tab, click to clear the
Write Cache Enabled check box, and then click OK.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290757


If you're inquiring about XP, Right-click "My Computer", Properties, Hardware Tab, Device
Manager. Expand "Disk Drives", Double-click the flash drive, "Policies Tab", Check "Optimize
for quick removal" and "OK" your way out.
Now you can remove the flash drive without using the Safe Removal Icon.

NOTE: If you disable the quick-remove feature in Windows XP, (Optimize for Performance instead)
you can use NTFS as filesystem on the flash drive.