Unplugging External Drive

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Robert Lee

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I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

that doesn't work.



What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

"Safe to Remove" message?
 
"Robert Lee" wrote in message

news:3F9484A4-95F4-47E4-8278-94CCAC189B02@microsoft.com...

:I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

: without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

: Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often

time,

: that doesn't work.

:

: What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting

the

: "Safe to Remove" message?



You could lose all the data.

You need to lose Norton, instead.
 
On Fri, 9 Apr 2010 11:21:01 -0700, Robert Lee

wrote:



> I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

> "Safe to Remove" message?





A file on it could get garbled. But if you simply wait a couple of

minutes after last use of it, the risk is very small.



--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

Please Reply to the Newsgroup
 
Robert Lee wrote:

> I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

> "Safe to Remove" message?



The danger in disconnecting a drive is that you could lose data.

Plainly, if you disconnect the drive while some application actually is

writing to it, you will have a problem.



You may, however, not know if data is being written to the drive

because, under some circumstances, Windows "caches" data to be written

on a disk in RAM. This permits the program generating the information

to generate data more rapidly than it could be written to the disk.

Periodically, Windows actually writes the cached data to the disk.



If you disconnect a drive for which caching is being used, you risk

losing some data.



In general, a USB drive should have caching turned off. Open Device

Manager, right click on the drive, and select Properties. Click on the

Policies tab. Select the top radio button to "Optimize for quick

removal" and OK your way out.

--

Lem



Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html
 
Thanks to everyone who responded. Do you know what processes are preventing

me from getting the "Safe to Remove" message?



On some occasions, I have gotten the message after stopping: 1)

searchindexer, and 2) Norton Antivirus. But stopping those doesn't

consistently result in getting the "Safe to Remove" message. What other

software may be preventing me from getting the message?



"Robert Lee" wrote:



> I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

> "Safe to Remove" message?
 
Robert Lee wrote:

> Thanks to everyone who responded. Do you know what processes are preventing

> me from getting the "Safe to Remove" message?

>

> On some occasions, I have gotten the message after stopping: 1)

> searchindexer, and 2) Norton Antivirus. But stopping those doesn't

> consistently result in getting the "Safe to Remove" message. What other

> software may be preventing me from getting the message?

>

> "Robert Lee" wrote:

>

>> I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

>> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

>> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

>> that doesn't work.

>>

>> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

>> "Safe to Remove" message?



Don't know what's causing your problem (although NAV is always suspect),

but you can create a desktop shortcut to "Safely Remove Hardware" --

http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2007/04/05/create_a_safely_remove_ha.html



--

Lem



Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/40th/index.html
 
I do not know if this could practicably be correct,

but when I had a similar problem

I found when I moved a file link by a subsidiary program

away from the external drive, it exited OK.



For example, if I had ACDSee open and a ext drive file highlighted (but not

opened)

by ACDSee's selector, I could not exit properly.

I always now direct win explorer or any other file organiser away from the

ext drive.



"Robert Lee" wrote in message

news:3F9484A4-95F4-47E4-8278-94CCAC189B02@microsoft.com...

>I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often

> time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting

> the

> "Safe to Remove" message?
 
"Robert Lee" wrote in message

news:3F9484A4-95F4-47E4-8278-94CCAC189B02@microsoft.com...

>I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often

> time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting

> the

> "Safe to Remove" message?



Apart from what the others are saying I found I was sometimes getting a

'drive still in use' message when I went to safely remove. This usually

simply meant I still had the drive letter highlighted in My Computer or

Windows Explorer. Open a file on another drive and you may find you can

then stop yours in the normal way.



There is also a handy little gadget called usbdeview which shows you what

usb devices are and have been connected, and whether they are safe to

remove. Can be quite an eye opener...



S
 
On 4/9/2010 11:21 AM On a whim, Robert Lee pounded out on the keyboard



> I have an external hard drive plugged into a USB port. I want to unplug it

> without shutting off the computer. Sometimes, if I turn off my Norton

> Anti-Virus program, I can get the "Safe to Remove" message. But often time,

> that doesn't work.

>

> What's the worst that could happen if I unplug the drive without getting the

> "Safe to Remove" message?



Hi Robert,



Don't know where you are at with this, but did you try right clicking on

the device in Explorer and selecting "Eject"? This happens on my Palm

Pre and Eject is the only way it will release.





Terry R.

--

Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.

Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.
 
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