External USB drives connected via a hub

[FrizzleFry]

I have a couple of external USB hard drives connected to a PC through a USB hub

Safely Remove Hardware shows something like this:

Eject External HDD
- My Book (G)
- Cavalry (H)

In XP I could remove either hard drive without affecting the other...
with Windows 7 Ultimate (both RC and RTM) I can only remove the entire hub by clicking on "Eject External HDD", clicking on either of the drive entries has no effect.

I do not have any drivers for these USB devices installed and everything else seems to be working fine.

I would appreciate any info on this issue.

FF

 

[Night Hawk]

Hello FrizzleFry Welcome to the Se7enforums!

I never even use the safely remove hardware option for plugging and unplugging flash drives used on a hub here for various things. I do have a wav file assigned for connecting devices and disconnecting devices however to alert to any problems.

Here I simply go into the Disk Management tool and assign each flash drive it's own logical drive letter since all were reformatted to NTFS with the exception of a few usb keys made up for GParted or an installation key for one of the RCs at present. Once the original factory stuff is reformatted right off any of the drives for the NTFS volume then seen you never see the safely remove popup appear.

 

[FrizzleFry]

Running Safely Remove Hardware with this command:

%windir%\System32\RUNDLL32.EXE shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

I do have entries for the two hard drives but when I try to remove one of them I get this error:

---------------------------
Problem Ejecting WD 3200AAJ External USB Device
---------------------------
The 'WD 3200AAJ External USB Device' device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged.
---------------------------

I am able to safely remove both these drives from XP.

 

[Night Hawk]

I've unplugged and replugged an external hard drive as well as flash drives while I still had XP on without problems except the need to reboot and have XP redetect each as new hardware and sometimes reassign the drive letters in the disk management tool all over again.

When the original Fat volume is on from the factory you end up needing the run the installer again or preloaded software. Once you have them reformatted to NTFS the drives simply are redetected as new hardwares and readily available. With 7 of course I can simply plug, unplug, and replug flash drives at any time and simply hear the connect device or disconnect device wav file assigned and still see them with the same drive letter.

 

[echo7]

I have this same problem. Have you found a solution yet?

 

[mpcrsc562]

I have a hub in use right now with my Windows 7 install. When you need to remove one item from the hub, you simply click the specific drive you want removed. Also, it helps to have flash drives named somthing specific so that you'll know exactly which drive to remove. Gets kind of confusing when all the devices show up as "Removable Disk."

Anyway, on the pic, A:, I:, & H: are all connected to the hub. Just move the cursor onto the specific drive and click.

If, for some reason, that doesn't work, go to Computer and right click the drive you want removed and select "Eject."

 

[Night Hawk]

The A drive letter is always present but reserved for 3 1/2" Floppy drives which at one time would have(or still does on some pcs) used A or B which is also reserved.

For the lergest 32gb flash drive here the R letter was used for "RECOVERY" since ubuntu was installed on a small second root partition leaving the larger 25gb NTFS formatted partition for data recovery from any Windows machine that won't startup for some reason. The bootable flash drive is easily determined even when left unused for long periods of time.

Typically for others the I or L is seen given by Windows when one of the other smaller flash drives is plugged in. But this is with only one at a time not when 3 or 4 are plugged in.

 

[mpcrsc562]

The A drive letter is always present but reserved for 3 1/2" Floppy drives which at one time would have(or still does on some pcs) used A or B which is also reserved.

Not necessarily... I have reassigned my flash drive "A" for the sake of an older program that needed a key loaded from the "A" drive. So it's reserved if the device is present, but available for use if it isn't.

For the lergest 32gb flash drive here the R letter was used for "RECOVERY" since ubuntu was installed on a small second root partition leaving the larger 25gb NTFS formatted partition for data recovery from any Windows machine that won't startup for some reason. The bootable flash drive is easily determined even when left unused for long periods of time.

Typically for others the I or L is seen given by Windows when one of the other smaller flash drives is plugged in. But this is with only one at a time not when 3 or 4 are plugged in.

I'm not following you... You are stating this on your system? And, you're having problems removing devices that are plugged into a hub too?

 

[Night Hawk]

I use a hub here for both printer and flash drives. But out of the 8 flash drives only a pair see labeling on the volumes. The 32gb was labeled Recovery for that purpose of booting live from the flash drive and sees the drive letter assigned in the DM maintained while the others will be randomly assigned by Windows when plugged in for a brief period.

One is simply a small 2gb Kingston used for GParted live and doesn't need to be labeled while a few others see ubuntu, Puppy Linux, or the Knoppix dvd iso unpacked to it and are used for live boots. The two 16gb saw ubuntu on one and Puppy on the other with a good sized NTFS first partition for transferring files between systems while booted live.

The boot live drives also see a system rescue program for cleaning up virus infected pcs when older XP systems are loaded with bugs! like one I just saw cleaned up for someone lately. The safety remove icon wasn't on the mind of the owner there for sure when just wanting his system up and running again while in 7 here the green icon is clicked on each time.

 

[FrizzleFry]

I was able to solve my problem by disconnecting power from the USB hub... now each drive shows a separate eject entry. I guess Windows 7 looks at powered hubs as actual devices.

I have run into several problems when just unplugging USB hard drives... many times when I plug them back in Windows 7 will popup a window to scan the drive for errors and some times the volume will not allow me to create folders... when it gets to that point the only solution has been to backup what I can and reformat the partition.

Usually unplugging flash drives doesn't cause any problems for me but I still prefer to safely remove them.

 

[Night Hawk]

Even when using a hub here and going to unplug one the little old green icon hidden in the system tray gets a click to see the ejected popup for it. If a drive letter has been already assigned to a specific flash drive or when having the external still in the original casing the letter would be seen once plugged back in even while booted in Windows.

 

[sp33dsk8]

Think i've figured this little problem out.

I have a Western Digital 1TB usb 2+3 external drive (no power supply only usb)from wal-mart for about $130. This is an amazing drive so far btw had it for 2 months. On windows 7 I could never eject the device gave the same error as stated above. To understand why it does this 1.Run Disk management ( "C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc" ) 2. Right click on the drive you'd like to eject. 3. Select Properties 4. Goto Policies tab 5. The Option "Quick Removal" is likely checked and using safely remove is not necessary.

Hope that was some assistance...

Chris