Help! Vista is holding my USB HD hostage!

[I am running Vista Home Premium 64 bit]

I plugged in my Toshiba USB hard drive when I first got my computer about a week ago, to transfer programs and files to the new computer.

Now, for the past several days I have tried to remove it and I keep getting the message, "cannot safely remove it because it is in use"!

It is NOT in use as far as I know. In fact today I started my computer and did not even access the drive at all yet I get the same error from "Safely Remove Hardware".

I have turned indexing off on the drive, on both partitions.

MS sent me a "Hotfix" via email but when I went to install it there were all kinds of warnings with it, basically telling me "use this at your own risk, we are not vouching for this being reliable!" So I was rather afraid to do it.

I thought turning off Indexing on the drive would solve the problem but it did not.

Anyone have a solution or possible remedy?? This is just a backup drive and I want to disconnect it and put it on a shelf once I'm done with installing the software and files to my new computer.

Happens all the time. Just take it out. (unplug the usb)

If you have transferred music from your old pc to itunes for example, and it is still using the file n the drive as its source then that could be it, happened to me by forgetting to actually transfer the files.

Might help, or just unplug it, ive never had anything currupt from simply unplugging without the safely remove thing being done.

rive0108 said:

Happens all the time. Just take it out. (unplug the usb)

Click to expand...

Thanks Retro and rive, but can you add a little to this, rive?

In essence are you saying that one does not now nor never needed to "Safely Remove Hardware" in order to not risk file corruption? Or is this just a new Vista thing, or what?

I have heard stories of people ending up with loss of data or corrupted drives due to not using the Safely Remove Hardware feature. Are those stories not true?

Sorry to question you further on this (I am somewhat hard-headed you might well say!), but when it comes to my data - I have my ONLY copy of my new computer's Recovery Partition on the USB HD in question, for example - I am somewhat nervous about unplugging it without getting an all-clear from Vista.

So is it just that Vista's Safely Remove Hardware function simply does not work? No one's does?

And no, RetroDude, I do not have any such issues with an un-transferred file in Itunes or anything like that.

I heard one person say that turning off Indexing for the computer, not just for the USB drive - solved the problem. But I am dubious because if it's not indexing the drive already, how is that going to help? But I guess I'll try it because I am really nervous about unplugging it while it is telling me it's not safe.

pdsnickles said:

rive0108 said:

Happens all the time. Just take it out. (unplug the usb)

Click to expand...

Thanks Retro and rive, but can you add a little to this, rive?

In essence are you saying that one does not now nor never needed to "Safely Remove Hardware" in order to not risk file corruption? Or is this just a new Vista thing, or what?

I have heard stories of people ending up with loss of data or corrupted drives due to not using the Safely Remove Hardware feature. Are those stories not true?

Sorry to question you further on this (I am somewhat hard-headed you might well say!), but when it comes to my data - I have my ONLY copy of my new computer's Recovery Partition on the USB HD in question, for example - I am somewhat nervous about unplugging it without getting an all-clear from Vista.

So is it just that Vista's Safely Remove Hardware function simply does not work? No one's does?

And no, RetroDude, I do not have any such issues with an un-transferred file in Itunes or anything like that.

I heard one person say that turning off Indexing for the computer, not just for the USB drive - solved the problem. But I am dubious because if it's not indexing the drive already, how is that going to help? But I guess I'll try it because I am really nervous about unplugging it while it is telling me it's not safe.

Click to expand...

It is best to be safe, and eject it properly, but errors do happen, and the half a dozen times I just removed the thumb drive has resulted in no issues or corruption.

When you click the Safely Remove Hardware icon in Windows Vista, the device in question may not be removed as expected

I once damaged a usb flashdrive by just just unplugging it (suspect static but can't be sure...however, this does happen and I agree with reve0108. If you are worried about it then I would suggest shutting your pc down first and then unplugging it.

Okay, this is weird... but what I had read is TRUE!
In order to be able to get the okay from Vista to shut it down, I had to quit the INDEXING SERVICE under Services, as in Brink's Tutorial found on this site:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/69564-index-enable-disable.html

Even though I did have indexing turned off for the drive in Management/ Properties!

Still, it would not allow me to safely remove it UNTIL I shut down Vista's entire Indexing function!

Thanks for the info. I did not know it was safer to remove a drive with the computer shut down. Makes sense, though.

Well, I was wrong. Or, well, maybe not wrong, but somehow fooled...
After turning off Index Search for my whole hard drive, I was able to safely remove my USB HD for the first time without getting the "Files in use" error.

But now, today, I hooked up a dfferent USB drive and now I am getting the same error on IT. In fact all I did was open it up and look to see the files were there. I did not open any files whatsoever on the drive. Then I tried to Safely Remove it and I cannot. I restarted, too, and that also does not work.

I guess I'll have to try the Hotfix Windows sent me after all. How in the hell could MS have made a new OS and NOT have fixed this old XP problem??!! (In fact, it's WORSE on Vista; on XP it only happened occasionally; on Vista it is happening EVERY TIME!)

I refuse to just unplug a drive with this error, that has 250 gigs of important data on it! I hope this Hotfix works and does not cause other problems with my computer.

power down the machine then disconnect

The only moments it ISN'T safe to 'just disconnect' a USB flash disk/HD is when you are actually writing/reading something from it or if you are formatting/defragging it.

(that means YOU are MOVING files FROM or TO the drive)

safely remove hardware has always been a handsome frog on windows for as long as I can remember and for that same period of time I never paid any heed to it and just unplugged my usb stuff whenever the hell I felt like and Ive never once had any issues with corrupt/lost data. =)

edit:
on a side note, I have to agree the safest way would be to simply power down your PC and unplugg the usb disk then. for ultimate safety be sure to flip the power switch on your PSU (hell might aswell go the extra mile if you're going to do this anyway)

pdsnickles said:

Well, I was wrong. Or, well, maybe not wrong, but somehow fooled...
After turning off Index Search for my whole hard drive, I was able to safely remove my USB HD for the first time without getting the "Files in use" error.

But now, today, I hooked up a dfferent USB drive and now I am getting the same error on IT. In fact all I did was open it up and look to see the files were there. I did not open any files whatsoever on the drive. Then I tried to Safely Remove it and I cannot. I restarted, too, and that also does not work.

I guess I'll have to try the Hotfix Windows sent me after all. How in the hell could MS have made a new OS and NOT have fixed this old XP problem??!! (In fact, it's WORSE on Vista; on XP it only happened occasionally; on Vista it is happening EVERY TIME!)

I refuse to just unplug a drive with this error, that has 250 gigs of important data on it! I hope this Hotfix works and does not cause other problems with my computer.

Click to expand...

If this is occuring everytime you insert a usb thumbdrive, then chances are you have some Windows corruption. (this assumes Windows is up to date), the issue that consistantly occures is not normal. I dont know if the hotfix will resolve this for you, its worth a shot, but I think the registry has somehow been damaged for your pc.

rive, thanks for the encouraging words. ;-D
I hope my system's registry has not been corrupted. Yes, my Windows is completely up to date; however I can't see how the registry would have been damaged. I have only installed known programs and have had my firewall up, etc.. Do you have any idea HOW my registry could have been damaged?

I found that Vista has yet another problem: When an IPod is inserted, it may not allow ejection of the IPod without corrupting the data on the IPod! Isn't that just typical, that Vista would corrupt its only true competitor's product's data?

So, I downloaded the hotfix, not only because I do have an IPod but because I figured if Vista is having trouble ejecting IPods the fix might also work on my Safely Remove Hardware error. Maybe.

After installing it, I was able to remove the drive I had been having trouble with. But I have not had the occasion to remove a drive again since then so I am not SURE it did fix it or if it was just another coincidence like after I turned off Searching and it appeared to work but in fact did not work the next time.

By the way these are not thumbwheel drives, these are big external drives, 250gb and 500gb and 750gb, with a lot of important data on them so I that is why I am reluctant to remove them without the "okay" from Safely Remove Hardware.

By the way, I would like to ask a related question re EHD's:
Does it slow down one's system or otherwise cause any problems if you have 3-4 HD's connected to USB2 at once? I doubt I will have that need now that I have a new big EHD and a 750gig internal drive, but when I ran XP on my old computer I did often have 3 external drives hooked up and I wondered if it caused XP to bog down... I am guessing that it would not, unless indexing was turned on, which it was not.

I'll report back in a day or two once I know for sure whether or not the IPod hotfix solved my Safely Remove Hardware problem.