USB safely remove hardware problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dr. Dos
  • Start date Start date
D

Dr. Dos

I have four usb hdds hung off my computer via an externally
powered hub. Two drives are self-powered WD Passports and
two are externally powered Maxtors.
The "safely remove hardware" routine returns the error message:
"The device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping it later."
This is for whichever usb hdd I select.
I can stop other devices such as thumb drive, cd/dvd drive,
printer, headset. Any idea of why hdds won't stop or how how
to stop them?
WinXP Pro SP2
 
Dr. Dos said:
I have four usb hdds hung off my computer via an externally powered hub.
Two drives are self-powered WD Passports and two are externally powered
Maxtors.
The "safely remove hardware" routine returns the error message:
"The device cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping it later."
This is for whichever usb hdd I select.
I can stop other devices such as thumb drive, cd/dvd drive, printer,
headset. Any idea of why hdds won't stop or how how to stop them?
WinXP Pro SP2
Click to expand...

One of your processes is accessing files on the drives.

I usually manage to sort this out by using Process Explorer
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx)
to find which process has a handle to files on the drives and kill it. More
often than not it's explorer.exe.

Ed Metcalfe.
 
Ed said:
One of your processes is accessing files on the drives.

I usually manage to sort this out by using Process Explorer
(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx)
to find which process has a handle to files on the drives and kill it. More
often than not it's explorer.exe.

Ed Metcalfe.
Click to expand...
Thank you.
Very handy that Windows Process Explorer. I determined that
Norton Utilities NProtect (also very handy) had domain over
these outrigger hdds. Since the usb hang-on drives are all
duplicative backups and hardly ever have anything manually
deleted, NProtect serves no purpose. I disabled NProtect on
them, still protecting the main C drive. Now I can detach a
portable drive without worry or shutting down.
 
Back
Top