Vista - Safely Remove Hardware - USB flash drive "in use"

Hi all

Many times when I come to 'Safely Remove Hardware' (USB pen drive) it is
reported as in use (when it is not) and will not allow me to stop/eject
the drive.

Explorer is closed and no apps that I can see are accessing the pen
drive... (indexing?).

I end up pulling it out anyway ;-)

An annoying bug - does not do this with XP either.

Guy

"Bigguy" <bigguy36@xxxxxx> wrote
Among the other programs that may be using the drive without your being
aware of it are the Recycle Bin and System Restore...

--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

Restoring the Safely Remove Hardware Icon

So, tell me, has your Safely Remove Hardware icon ever disappeared from your system tray? You know, the icon you use to safely disconnect your USB devices. Even though your device is still plugged in, the icon is gone and you're left stranded without a safe way to remove it. So, what do you do? Well, most people go ahead and pull the device out on their own, but that's really not the proper way to do it. Doing that can cause severe damage to your hardware. Luckily, there's an easy way to get your Safely Remove Hardware icon back up and running. Try this!

To restore your Safely Remove Hardware icon, go to your Start menu, right click on it and choose Properties.

Next, click on the Taskbar tab at the top of the dialogue window.

Once you've done that, click on the Customize button.

In the Customize Notification(s) dialogue box, scroll down until you come across the Safely Remove Hardware option. Next, click on the down arrow next to it and select Always Show. Then click OK.

The Safely Remove Hardware icon will then reappear in your system tray and you can go back to removing your hardware the right way. Oh yeah!

I'll tell you when it is definitely a problem. If the device is a thumb
drive you will rarely get the thumb drive corrupted and you can always go
back to the source and get what was on the thumb. Ipods or Apple little
devices almost never.

But if you do this enough times with an external hard drive and you've
backed up significant files and folders to it, you may find that hd
corrupted, and unless you're a recovery expert and have the expensive tools
and odds are you aren't, people want $1500-$1700 bucks to recover them.
There are videos on the web that may or may not work for you.

CH

"Bigguy" <bigguy36@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:6ofe46F3d5k4U1@xxxxxx