Can’t stop USB and 1394 devices Safely (XP SP1)

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Folks,

Almost always when I try to use the Safely Remove Hardware function to stop my USB and 1394 hard drives, I am told that the device can’t be stopped now, try again later. Later tries get the same message. I also often have the same problem with USB memory sticks. What’s going on here? How do I fix it? Having to shut down my machine each time I want to remove a drive sort of defeats the purpose of USB and 1394.

Sometimes I just remove the devices despite the above error message (usually by accident). I then get a message that it was impossible to do a write to the device and that accordingly data has been lost. I notice no file corruption (these are backup drives, so I can check the files against the originals), but I can’t imagine this is good practice. What damage am I doing?

Thanks for any advice you may have on this!

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Do you ever save to the devices directly from an application? Or open files on the device directly? If so then you may need to completely exit from your applications.

Could you possilby have an Explorer window that is displaying the contents of the device?

StuartR

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I relatiively rarely save directly from apps to or open files directly on these devices, since they are backup devices. I do sometimes have Explorer windows open. that display the devices’ contents. In factt, farily often.

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> I do sometimes have Explorer windows open. that display the devices’ contents. In factt, farily often.

That is almost certainly your problem. Try closing all explorer windows, or at least ensuring that none of them is showing the contents of a removable device – an expanded list of directories in the left hand pane will also cause this to happen.

StuartR

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Stuart,

Thanks very much. I’ll close the Explorer windows and see what happenns.

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Stuart,

Thanks very much. I’ll close the Explorer windows and see what happenns.

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Stuart,

One question: What, if any, damage have I done by disconnecting these devices despite being unable to stop them?

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Probably no damage at all.

If you had copied, moved or renamed any files or folders then it is possible that some data, or metadata, was still in a cache somewhere in Windows. This could have left those recently changed things unreadable.

StuartR

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Very good to hear. I’ll be more careful in the future. Thanks once again for your help.

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Very good to hear. I’ll be more careful in the future. Thanks once again for your help.

Reply | Quote

Probably no damage at all.

If you had copied, moved or renamed any files or folders then it is possible that some data, or metadata, was still in a cache somewhere in Windows. This could have left those recently changed things unreadable.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

Stuart,

One question: What, if any, damage have I done by disconnecting these devices despite being unable to stop them?

Reply | Quote

> I do sometimes have Explorer windows open. that display the devices’ contents. In factt, farily often.

That is almost certainly your problem. Try closing all explorer windows, or at least ensuring that none of them is showing the contents of a removable device – an expanded list of directories in the left hand pane will also cause this to happen.

StuartR

Reply | Quote

I relatiively rarely save directly from apps to or open files directly on these devices, since they are backup devices. I do sometimes have Explorer windows open. that display the devices’ contents. In factt, farily often.

Reply | Quote

Do you ever save to the devices directly from an application? Or open files on the device directly? If so then you may need to completely exit from your applications.

Could you possilby have an Explorer window that is displaying the contents of the device?

StuartR

Reply | Quote