WinXP "Safely Remove Hardware"

[Murkey]

Have an external USB hard drive. I get the "safely remove hardware"
icon. After I click to shut down the drive, I do get the message about the
drive being in use, but thirty seconds or so later the icon is gone and I
unplug/power down the drive.
What is the proper way to unplug/power down the external hard drive. to
prevent corrupting data ?? TIA

 

[Guest]

Have an external USB hard drive. I get the "safely remove hardware"
icon. After I click

WHAT do you "Click"?

 

[Murkey]

WHAT do you "Click"?

Right click the "Safely remove Hardware" icon.

 

[Ray Shafranski]

Have an external USB hard drive. I get the "safely remove hardware"
icon. After I click to shut down the drive, I do get the message about
the
drive being in use, but thirty seconds or so later the icon is gone and I
unplug/power down the drive.
What is the proper way to unplug/power down the external hard drive. to
prevent corrupting data ?? TIA

The drive is probably shown as in use due to it being open in Windows
Explorer.
Shut down all programs & then try Safely Remove Hardware.

 

[Frank Saunders MS-MVP IE,OE/WM]

Have an external USB hard drive. I get the "safely remove hardware"
icon. After I click to shut down the drive, I do get the message about
the
drive being in use, but thirty seconds or so later the icon is gone and I
unplug/power down the drive.
What is the proper way to unplug/power down the external hard drive. to
prevent corrupting data ?? TIA

It sounds like the first time you click there is still data to be written to
the drive and the second time Windows has finished writing the data.

 

[Marcy]

It sounds like the first time you click there is still data to be written to
the drive and the second time Windows has finished writing the data.

Sounds reasonable. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't possibly compromising
the data.

 

[Tony Luxton]

If you double-click the icon, you'll get the option to "stop" the device.

HTH Tony.