USB drives won't eject

sherisdoppel · 16 Jan 2011

It suddenly started happening and I can assure you there is no other program using it.
I've used process explorer to see what's being handled and I always get this:

I:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TxfLog\$TxfLog.blf
I:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TxfLog\$TxfLogContainer00000000000000000001
I:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$Txf
I:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TxfLog\$TxfLogContainer00000000000000000002

It happens to every single external HDD I connect to it.
I can't always safe eject them so most of the time I plug out my USB cable 'cause I need them in a different system.
Doing this sometimes mess up the HDD (happened to me before, twice) and I wish there is a solution for this.

Cato · 16 Jan 2011

Two things that could be causing the problem is System Restore and Indexing. Do you have either or both set for you HDD?

pebbly · 16 Jan 2011

Hi sherisdoppel, have a look at this link Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

DocBrown · 16 Jan 2011

USB Safely Remove 4.4.2.1087

I downloaded an earlier freeware version of this about 2 years ago, still working.

Here is the latest 30 day free trial

Download USB Safely Remove 4.4.2.1087 Free Trial - USB device manager, a must have tool for active USB user - Softpedia

whs · 16 Jan 2011

You could set them to "Quick Removal" (in Policies). Then you do not have to worry about that. But they will read/write a bit slower

sherisdoppel · 16 Jan 2011

pebbly said:

Hi sherisdoppel, have a look at this link Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

It doesn't seem to work. I've tried and it keeps saying, "invalid handle" for all four of them.

sherisdoppel · 16 Jan 2011

DocBrown said:

USB Safely Remove 4.4.2.1087

I downloaded an earlier freeware version of this about 2 years ago, still working.

Here is the latest 30 day free trial

Download USB Safely Remove 4.4.2.1087 Free Trial - USB device manager, a must have tool for active USB user - Softpedia

It still lists the four handles and it's saying the device cannot be stopped.
Even force stop doesn't work and the handle still remains running....

sherisdoppel · 22 Jan 2011

Still needing help on this one...

pebbly · 23 Jan 2011

sherisdoppel said:

Still needing help on this one...

sherisdoppel, try using process monitor to find out what is using the drives to stop them being ejected Process Monitor

Trucidation · 03 Sep 2011

whs said:

You could set them to "Quick Removal" (in Policies). Then you do not have to worry about that. But they will read/write a bit slower

Pardon the necro, but if I'm not mistaken only win7 Pro and above has this -- searching for "policies" on my win7 x64 Home Premium machine returns no relevant results. However, I also seem to recall the policies are just a nice UI pointing to registry keys, so on Home Premium all I need is the relevant registry key to edit. Right?

Only just purchased a 2-bay USB enclosure and one 2TB drive to stick in it this morning. Copied a whole bunch of data just fine but win7 wouldn't let me eject the drive after I was done.

Possible relevant info in the following (external) threads:
SafelyRemove.com Forum • View topic - transactional ntfs + sata + safe removal
Vista refuses to safely remove external usb hard drive - Vista Help

The second one contained a link to a SysInternals tools ("sync") which I decided to download and use - didn't solve the issue (still couldn't stop the device), but I figure since the data was safely flushed it should be no problem to just yank the usb cable out after syncing.

Really annoying, this. Isn't there any way of telling win7 that this is a removable device, and that I want to remove it, dammit? You'd think processes like search and indexing would take this into account by now, it's not like removable devices are new.