USB Drive can't be removed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aldo
  • Start date Start date
A

Aldo

I use a ZIP USB Drive for my music collection. When I finish hearing music,
I try to remove the USB and get a message about a program still using it. I
tried closing every program and even disabling my antivirus without success.
It worked fine with Windows XP. Any ideas? TIA.
 
Aldo said:
I use a ZIP USB Drive for my music collection. When I finish hearing
music, I try to remove the USB and get a message about a program still
using it. I tried closing every program and even disabling my antivirus
without success. It worked fine with Windows XP. Any ideas? TIA.
Click to expand...

Try to eject the disk using the eject command from Windows Explorer or from
Computer (right click on the drive letter for the option.) Once the disk is
ejected it should free up the remove the USB lock that you are experiencing.
I have a USB ZIP drive but haven't tried it with Vista yet. I have had to
do this with XP however and it worked most times. Of course you may have
issues with the eject for the drive also if the OS has locked the drive and
I have had issues with this in the past also with XP.

If you are not writing to the drive, only reading your music files you
should have no problem just unplugging the USB drive. The caution for using
the safe remove option is normally used to ensure that all data being
written to a drive has been written prior to removal of the drive.
 
Thanks for your answer. The problem is I'm working in several other files,
so I don't want to close my session in the first place, much less do I want
to reboot.
 
Thanks for your answer. The eject option gives me the same message about a
program still using it. By the way, of course I checked the task manager and
my music program (MediaMonkey) was completely closed.
 
Aldo said:
Thanks for your answer. The eject option gives me the same message about a
program still using it. By the way, of course I checked the task manager
and my music program (MediaMonkey) was completely closed.
Click to expand...

You still have some program locking access to the drive and it is probably
you music program. ( I have just hooked up my USB Zip to Vista to test a
few things and it works good.)

Try rebooting the computer to clear any access to the drive. Immediately
try to eject the disk. If it is not released at that time, you have a
program that is loading at startup that is locking the drive and you will
need to find out that program.

If the first test is successful in removing the disk, try using Windows
Media Player (I know, I don't like it too much either) to play a few of the
songs and see if the drive is locked after playing them. If not, I would
suspect that the player you are using is still keeping something locked in
the system even when closed. You may be able to find it in the Task
Manager, processes and see if you see anything running there related to your
music player.
 
If I log out of my session, and of course if I reboot Vista, I can eject my
HD without problems. However I don't want to close all my work just to
remove the HD. I would like to know which program locks the HD. I know about
a few programs that give this information in Windows XP (like unlockit,
etc.), but I don't know how to find this in Vista. As I said before, the
task manager doesn't show anything related to my music program.
 
Did you boot originally with the Zip drive having a disk in it?
If you did, then the Zip drive is controlling the action of your computer.
The only recourse is to remove the disk and shutdown, then reboot without
the disk in the Zip drive.
 
Badger said:
Did you boot originally with the Zip drive having a disk in it?
If you did, then the Zip drive is controlling the action of your computer.
The only recourse is to remove the disk and shutdown, then reboot without
the disk in the Zip drive.
Click to expand...

Not always true, but it may be in the OPs case. I have tested the theory
presented by you with my USB Zip 100 drive and with or without a disk in the
drive upon boot-up I can access, eject and insert another disk in the drive
without issues of having the computer locking the drive. In the OP's case I
am wondering if the program creates a "playlist" that causes the drive to
lock and doesn't release it on program closing.

There are some programs that will lock the drive until reboot but I don't
have one on this Vista machine but I do on one of my XP machines. If I even
run the program (and it doesn't access the ZIP drive during it's time
running to get or write data to it) it locks the drive. This is a piece of
vertical software that even locks the CD/DVD drives on the computer.
Apparently one of the program's routines will lock all removable drives on
the machine. Since the program doesn't release the drives during exit, a
reboot is required. Granted a poor piece of program writing but if the
program is necessary for business operations...
 
Thanks for your answers. No, I insert the drive after I boot Windows. This
is a USB hard drive , not a Zip drive. Thanks for your help, maybe I'll have
to live with this problem, since I need this program.
 
Aldo said:
Thanks for your answers. No, I insert the drive after I boot Windows.
This is a USB hard drive , not a Zip drive. Thanks for your help, maybe
I'll have to live with this problem, since I need this program.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the "program" they're talking about is windows Explorer? I
have the same scenario on the LaCie 150 gig external that I use for
backup, and when the backup is done I like to shut it off and disconnect
for storage but I get the same message.

Dave T.
 
Janupagla said:
I -use a ZIP USB Drive for my music collection. When I finish
hearing
music, I try to- *...* -tried closing every program and even
disabling
my antivirus without- success. *...* -music, I try to remove the
USB
and get a message about a program still- > -using it. I tried
closing
every program and even disabling my antivirus- *...*
Click to expand...

I had a USB external drive exhibiting the same behavior. I
corrected this by not sharing this drive.
 
Dave T. said:
I wonder if the "program" they're talking about is windows Explorer? I
have the same scenario on the LaCie 150 gig external that I use for
backup, and when the backup is done I like to shut it off and disconnect
for storage but I get the same message.

Dave T.
Click to expand...

I also think it is related to the same locked files/handles issue that has
been around since XP. Being media files in this case the media library
indexing could be involved too. I've used Process explorer to find file
handles that shouldn't be open on a USB drive and closed them manually. That
at least worked to release the drive.
 
I tried using this program, but it's a little difficult for me. Could you
please explain a little more about how to find those "file handles"? TIA
 
Stopped watching this thread after the previous post...

In Process Explorer, make sure that the lower pane is enabled and set to
show file handles-- from the View menu select Show Lower Pane and under
that - select Lower Pane View -Show Handles.

Then also from the top menu - select Find- Find Handle or Dll -- Enter in
the driver letter of the locked drive ( eg. E: ) The program will search for
all open handles or DLLs on E: drive. When you click on each item it
displays in the Find list Process Explorer will also highlight the same item
in the lower pane where you can right-click and close the open handle. When
all the open file handles are closed you should be able to shut down the USB
drive normally.
 
I think this is actually a bug in the Vista USB driver, but I haven't found
any fix indication for it.
 
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