Constantly Unable to Eject External Drives

[koberulz]

For some reason Windows is being really clingy with my externals.

Sometimes it's svchost.exe, on this particular occasion it's Explorer. Except in Process Explorer I went in and removed those handles, and now according to Unlocker nothing is holding my drive. But I still get an error when I try to eject it.

This happens quite frequently, generally without the Explorer step - my drives will be 'in use', preventing ejection, but Unlocker can't find anything holding onto them. It's getting quite frustrating.

 

[billmcct]

Windows 7 doesn't use "Delayed Write" on external drives. You can see this in the properties of the drives.
drive>properties>hardware tab>select drive>properties>change settings>policies tab

Should show "write caching disabled which means you can just unplug the drives instead of ejecting.

 

[koberulz]

How do I tell which drive is which in the hardware tab?

 

[billmcct]

What brand external drives do you have? And what brand internal? A screenshot would help. You can use SIV to see what the names and serial numbers of the drives are.
Download SIV (System Information Viewer) - MajorGeeks it's free.
Or use Speccy
Speccy - Free Download - Piriform

Bill