Resolved Can't eject USB portable hard drive

My new external Western Digital Elements 500 GB USB portable hard drive works perfectly, but I can't eject it using the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" icon. I keep getting the message: "Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device / This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again." Needless to say, I can be trying again until forever and that error message won't go away. I have no idea what may be using the drive.

I tried an MS MVP's suggestion to kill Explorer.exe using Task Manager, but that made no difference. I also tried disabling my Avast AV to see if that would release the drive, but it made no difference.

The drive's activity LED stays full on when it isn't being accessed. It does flicker when there is activity and it's operating normally. The only way I can be sure I'm not doing any harm to the drive is by shutting down the system, removing the USB cable, and rebooting the computer.

Any help for this condition? Thanks!


Frank

BTW, this problem occurs only when I'm using the drive with my new HP Windows 7 Home Premium 64 machine. When I use the drive with my old Win XP Professional machine, also with Avast AV, the eject procedure works just fine.

 

Try this, it may reveal what is using the drive.

Click Start->All programs->Accessories->System Tools->Resource Monitor
and check to see what the drive is doing.

 

Mark,

I've done as you suggested. I've posted a screenshot of the Resource Monitor window at http://anyhub.net/file/Z41-resource-monitor.jpg . I can't make sense of it. Thanks for any help.

Frank

BTW, my USB drive is shown as drive F: and it doesn't seem to show any activity.

 

Problem solved!

GOOD NEWS:

I tried killing a lot of running processes in Task Manager, after each one trying to see if I could eject the USB drive, but none of these worked. At last I ran out of processes I could safely stop.

Finally, I right-clicked on the Eject icon in the system notification (tray) area and instead of clicking on the "Eject External HDD" option, as I had been doing, I clicked on the only other option, "Open Devices and Printers." This opened the Control Panel\Hardware and Sound\Devices and Printers window. Here I clicked on my External HDD drive icon and clicked on the "Troubleshoot" option. The Troubleshooter opened and started "Detecting problems." It found that there was a problem with the drive, and it automatically proceeded to try to find a solution. When it was finished (in about a minute) it announced that it had found a problem with the drive and had fixed it! Immediately, I again tried the Eject icon in the tray area and clicked on the "Eject External HDD" option -- and this time the balloon appeared, announcing that it was "Safe to Remove Hardware "!!! I've since tried this same procedure (after connecting and disconnecting the drive) three times now, and it has worked successfully every time.

SO. . . My problem was fixed by the Devices and Printers Troubleshooter. I'm happy again!

I'm going to mark this thread as Resolved.

Frank

 

Well done and thanks for letting us know how you fixed it.

 

Mark,
Thanks for your help and you're welcome!

It seems that when I have a problem, letting someone else know about it and having their acknowledgment and assistance with it makes it easier to think about and work on, and eventually troubleshoot and (hopefully) solve. I know there are no guarantees, but it sure makes things more reassuring while you're stuck to have someone looking over your shoulder. And of course, in this case, as I just found, with Windows 7 the built-in Help and Troubleshooting features really make life easier for a PC user!

Frank