Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device Pretty regularly I get this pop up, when trying to disconnect an external HDD from my desktop computer (win 7 ulti) The taskmgr shows correctly that no application is still running on the computer, yet, when clicking on the icon in the taskbar I get that pop up telling me: “Windows can’t stop your “generic volume” device because a program is still using it”
I just read this thread https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/how-long-does-my-hdd-have.76463/ before yours, and I wondered if JohnSutherland's description of the write process to a hard drive was not the source of your computer's unwillingness to eject the msd Try a different one and see if it ejects cleanly ...T
A friend had this issue. He was running Steam games that were installed on the external drive. But he forgot to shut down the Steam client before trying to Eject the drive via Explorer. Had the same issue with another friend who would use a system monitoring program (sensors) that ran off the external drive...and couldn't understand why it wouldn't just shut down any running program on that drive if Eject was envoked..and he refused to change his habits! LOL TQQdles™
Sometimes your antivirus/anti-malware software is scanning the drive, you can check the Task Manager and see if anything is running from your pc that might be trying to access the drive or something from the drive trying to access your pc, Almost always if you have an open file from the drive in another window you'll get that error too
yes that's what people usually do to get rid of that message but sometimes even that is not enough and you keep having that error message for unknown reason.
Problem is that USB-HDDs are usually not configured for Fast Removal, means the Write Cache option is enabled. Go to Properties of the Drive, then Hardware Tab and chose the drive in the list and click the 'Properties' button. In opening window click the 'Change Settings' button an go to the 'Guidelines' tab to check whether it's set to Fast Removal or if the Write Cache is enabled. In case of the latter it will refuse any Fast Removal attempts.
This message will often occur even if nothing is accessing the external drive and fast removal is checked. It's a random problem in Win 7 and previous Windows OS, but not apparently an issue in 8.1 and 10. I've run into this multiple times. Process Explorer and Resource Monitor will show that the drive is not being accessed, but when I attempt to eject Windows tries to write the Master File Table and log files, causing the drive to appear "in use" and preventing safe ejection. The safest solution is to reboot your computer (make sure external drive is not #1 for boot priority in BIOS) then safely eject a few minutes after logging into Windows. If you don't want to reboot you can open disk management and set the drive to "offline", but I do not know if that can cause other issues (you will need to set the drive to "online" next time you plug it in).
Yes, I've had this issue as well; however, for me, if I reboot, I can then safely remove the usb drive normally...
My suggestion is just log out windows and try to remove it. if not work use third party app they are good to solve this kind of issues.