usb hard drive driver?

[babavuna]

hello
i have western digital usb hard drive
i am on windows 7
everything is working good except one thing -> when i want to disconnect the drive from usb i go to safely eject the drive or something like that, then the windows says that the drive now is safe to be removed, but i can hear the drive is still working and the plates inside is still spinning.
when i connect the drive to windows xp and choose to safely disconnect the drive i can hear how the drive stops spinning and then the windows says that the drive is now ready to be removed.

is it possible to make win7 to do the same as win xp when i choose safely remove hard drive?
(first stop the spinning process,return the heads in the safe zone(this process is automatic by the drive itself, but windows 7 does not giving the command to stop the spinning proces and to return the heads to safe zone) and then to be ready to be removed)

Thank you!

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome babavuna first up can you please do this
Now before we can help we do need to know what is in your machine so please do this System Info - See Your System Specs
or either enter the specs of your system in your forum profile the specs will appear when we click on that little box bottom left of the post screen it is for me the preferable option as it is easy. As you may appreciate it is very hard when you don’t know what one is working with for example a diesel or petrol engine.
*(pretyped to save time)

Now I think maybe you need to update the driver for the USB ports and the external drive should have installed it's driver when you first plugged it in so did it? However before we can go on we nee to know what your specs are.

Just a thought have you tried disconnecting the drive to cut off the power to it?? and then reconnect it??

 

[babavuna]

I dont see how this will help you to find the problem ...
mainboard gigabyte g41m-combo 8gb ram ddr3
video gf gt730 4gb
hdd 160gb
on the same computer with win xp is working perfect.

its something with the driver that win7 installing when i plug in the drive
is there way to install the win xp driver to win 7 ?

 

[AddRAM]

I don`t think you`ll have any issues unplugging the drive after you get the safe to remove message.

It would be no different then if the drive went to sleep inside the PC case.

 

[babavuna]

There is big difference.
it is better to unplug the drive after the plates inside stops spinning than unplug it while they still spinn
in second way there is a chance the heads to stuck on the plate and goodbye hard drive and many moneys i give for it ...... and also many many info ...

 

[babavuna]

after all that should be the reason the "safely removal" option to exist ....
if its not doing its job properly why did they put it in the first place ......

 

[RolandJS]

babavuna, I think you're on to something; a few times I too have had a device that really did not "feel" safe to remove. I have had to leave the device attached until I was finished with the computer and did a shutdown, or, if I needed that usb port, I had to do a restart, waited for the famous black screen, and pulled the device off of the port. Have you been doing that also?

 

[RolandJS]

Would you mind trying something? tweaking.com's Windows Repair (All in One), Safe Mode with Networking, unclick all prechecked, click only file associations for EXE and system files, items number 26 & 27; restart twice, letting Windows come to full desktop, letting Windows re-settle. I think leave external media devices offline until the 2nd restart phase.
Items 26 & 27 are supposed to be resetting Windows' defaults.

 

[AddRAM]

babavuna, I think you're on to something; a few times I too have had a device that really did not "feel" safe to remove. I have had to leave the device attached until I was finished with the computer and did a shutdown, or, if I needed that usb port, I had to do a restart, waited for the famous black screen, and pulled the device off of the port. Have you been doing that also?

But wouldn`t the external drive still be running even if you turned the PC off ?

And if it just used the usb cable for power, wouldn`t shutting down the PC be just the same as pulling the plug from the external drive if it used AC power ?

Don`t these externals have an on/off switch on them ?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Yes most external hdd enclosures do have a manual power switch to totally turn them off or at least both mine do
Amazon.com: Sabrent ECS-STU35K USB 2.0 to 3.5-inch IDE/SATA or Serial ATA Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure Case (BLACK): Electronics

Amazon.com: Hornettek Enterprise 3.5in 4 Bay USB 3.0 JBOD SATA HDD Enclosure(HT-3402U3): Computers & Accessories

I do not use safe to remove on these items
I just shutdown the computer down the data on them is too important to take a chance of corruption
Only flash drives I use str.

 

[RolandJS]

I'm just now wondering if a security program is a little too assertively monitoring all removable devices, thus keeping such "unable" to be safely removed?

 

[johncorosz]

The operating system Microsoft Windows 7 allows the computer to shut off power to USB devices to save power. If you are using a laptop computer, this feature may help if you do not want USB-powered devices to draw off the computer's battery while the devices are not actively being used. On the other hand, this feature may cause problems with the operation of some USB powered devices, creating more of a headache than a help. Windows lets you turn off the power save option if you find it interferes with how you use your computer.

In fact this seems to work for my two external HDD

I select "eject" in Win Explorer and then wait about 3 minutes and they turn off automatically. I tell the power management to "enable selective suspend" - The USB selective suspend feature allows the hub driver to suspend an individual port without affecting the operation of the other ports on the hub. Selective suspension of USB devices is especially useful in portable computers, since it helps conserve power usage.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok mate now I wanted the motherboard info to get the drivers for it and try the USB ones but there are none as such bit I think you could do an update on the chipset at least. GA-G41M-Combo (rev. 1.3) - GIGABYTE - Motherboard , Graphics Card , Laptop , Mini-PC , Server , PC Peripherals and more

Now I think what Roland has said re shutting down the machine and then remove the drive is a good idea and better than nothing or risking the drive.

Plus you have plenty of advice from everyone now.