Suddenly can't safely remove external USB drives

Hasn't been a problem until now. The system won't let go of a couple
of USB external drives. Click the icon. hit Stop and I get a "can be
stopped try later" message.

Tried using Unlocker, still doesn't let me even when it says there are
no handles.

Running XP Pro SP3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Doc wrote:
Hasn't been a problem until now. The system won't let go of a couple
of USB external drives. Click the icon. hit Stop and I get a "can be
stopped try later" message.

Tried using Unlocker, still doesn't let me even when it says there are
no handles.

Running XP Pro SP3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

And in a previous posting, you were fooling around with Windows Search 4.

Any chance the two are related ?

Maybe indexing is running on the external drives ? Or something
you thought would help your search result, is now preventing safe
removal.

Paul

On Jan 12, 2:05*am, Paul wrote:
Doc wrote:
Hasn't been a problem until now. The system won't let go of a couple
of USB external drives. Click the icon. hit Stop and I get a "can be
stopped try later" message.

Tried using Unlocker, still doesn't let me even when it says there are
no handles.

Running XP Pro SP3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

And in a previous posting, you were fooling around with Windows Search 4.

Any chance the two are related ?


Don't know but it wasn't doing this previously with WS4 running. I'd
actually never seen WS4 before, it must have been included in a
Windows update. At first I thought it was annoying but it really
speeds up searches exponentially faster. Finds files across 5 drives
much, much faster than it would find a file on 1 drive with the usual
windows search assistant. It's very useful to me now that I'm trying
to clean up drives, get rid of redundant files.

On 1/12/2012 6:59 AM, Doc wrote:
On Jan 12, 2:05 am, wrote:
Doc wrote:
Hasn't been a problem until now. The system won't let go of a couple
of USB external drives. Click the icon. hit Stop and I get a "can be
stopped try later" message.

Tried using Unlocker, still doesn't let me even when it says there are
no handles.

Running XP Pro SP3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

And in a previous posting, you were fooling around with Windows Search 4.

Any chance the two are related ?


Don't know but it wasn't doing this previously with WS4 running. I'd
actually never seen WS4 before, it must have been included in a
Windows update. At first I thought it was annoying but it really
speeds up searches exponentially faster. Finds files across 5 drives
much, much faster than it would find a file on 1 drive with the usual
windows search assistant. It's very useful to me now that I'm trying
to clean up drives, get rid of redundant files.

I just happened to check giveawayoftheday.com this morning and just the
tool you need is being given away.

USB Safely Remove 4.7
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/usb-safely-remove-47/

I use both "USB Safely Remove" and "Zentimo" which are produced by the
same company. Zentimo has a bit more features like testing drive speeds,
etc. But both are very good and I can't see having Windows without
either or.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v9.0
Centrino Core2 Duo 2.17 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 7 SP1

On Jan 12, 8:20*am, BillW50 wrote:

I just happened to check giveawayoftheday.com this morning and just the
tool you need is being given away.

USB Safely Remove 4.7http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/usb-safely-remove-47/


Thanks. Hadn't heard of the site before. Tried it, still having the
same problem. svchost.exe is the process that keeps coming up as
having a lock on the drive.

On 1/12/2012 8:23 AM, Doc wrote:
On Jan 12, 8:20 am, wrote:

I just happened to check giveawayoftheday.com this morning and just the
tool you need is being given away.

USB Safely Remove 4.7http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/usb-safely-remove-47/


Thanks. Hadn't heard of the site before. Tried it, still having the
same problem. svchost.exe is the process that keeps coming up as
having a lock on the drive.

I rarely have a problem with safely remove. As it is usually like
Explorer is looking at it or something. But USB Safely Remove has a
force remove feature. Have you tried that? Windows should let it go then.

Svchost.exe is part of Windows and does a lot of things. See:

What is svchost.exe?
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...is-svchost-exe

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v9.0
Centrino Core2 Duo 2.17 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 7 SP1

On Jan 12, 9:39*am, BillW50 wrote:

I rarely have a problem with safely remove. As it is usually like
Explorer is looking at it or something. But USB Safely Remove has a
force remove feature. Have you tried that? Windows should let it go then.


Yes, tried that.

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.

On Jan 12, 10:27*am, Doc wrote:

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.


Getting this error

http://safelyremove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=323

On 1/12/2012 9:32 AM, Doc wrote:
On Jan 12, 10:27 am, wrote:

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.


Getting this error

http://safelyremove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=323

I have seen utilities, applications, etc. that monitor drives on the
system. Most of them play nicely and don't have a problem with safely
remove. But once in awhile, some of them do. So can you think of
anything you are running that might be monitoring disk space,
temperatures, etc. that isn't native to Windows? I bet it works in
safemode. eh?

Yes the forum admits your problem does pop up for some. And they say it
is a Windows bug which they are working on getting around.

And you and I know, in a case that you can't safely remove something,
powering down then remove is always safe. Although we both should check
on this, but logging off *might* be safe too. If that is ok, that is
much faster. I'm not suggesting this as a fix or anything, just a
workaround until we figure out how to fix your problem.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v9.0
Centrino Core2 Duo 2.17 GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 7 SP1

Doc wrote:
On Jan 12, 10:27 am, Doc wrote:

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.


Getting this error

http://safelyremove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=323


For tools, you can try Sysinternals Handle program

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896655

Apparently, Process Explorer also does handles, but it may take
a bit of work to get the handles displayed on the screen.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896653

What you're looking for, is any open files on any partition
on the hard drive that can't be removed.

Paul

"Doc" wrote in message ...
On Jan 12, 9:39 am, BillW50 wrote:

I rarely have a problem with safely remove. As it is usually like
Explorer is looking at it or something. But USB Safely Remove has a
force remove feature. Have you tried that? Windows should let it go then.


Yes, tried that.

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.


Maybe you not looking at it Right,

http://news.hot-text.ath.cx:81/usb.png



--
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

From: "Doc"

Hasn't been a problem until now. The system won't let go of a couple
of USB external drives. Click the icon. hit Stop and I get a "can be
stopped try later" message.

Tried using Unlocker, still doesn't let me even when it says there are
no handles.

Running XP Pro SP3.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Some utility or program is holding the drive or a file's handle open on the device.

For examples let's say the USB External Drive is "E:". Some program or utility is either
looking at "E:" or "E:\somefile" and thus the message.

You can use Sysinternal Process Explorer to find out.

Assuming "E:" for this discussion, load Process Explorer.
From the pull-down menu choose; Find -- file or handle
enter; e:

and it will show you what application is holding open the handle.


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

"Doc" wrote in message ...
On Jan 12, 10:27 am, Doc wrote:

I just tried it again after a reboot and it's telling me that it can't
find any processes locking the device that it might be locked by
Windows.


Getting this error

http://safelyremove.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=323


Its not a Microsoft error, but a kingston..

http://www.kingston.com/us/company/contacts


--
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Finally had success. Apparently it was the Windows Search -
searchindexer.exe After killing that I can remove and restart it
using USB Safely remove.

From: "Doc"

Finally had success. Apparently it was the Windows Search -
searchindexer.exe After killing that I can remove and restart it
using USB Safely remove.

How did you determine that EXE was holding the handle open ?
Did you use my Sysinternals Process Explorer suggestion ?


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp