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#1
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removing external hard drive
Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick
removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne |
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#2
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removing external hard drive
Yes it is a good practice to do so. In a situation where you get that
message, I normally log off and then login again to see if all the processes have finished doing what they were doing. HD is HD and you can't afford to take risks with it. Better 5 minutes late than sorry! hth Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne |
#3
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removing external hard drive
In ,
Tester wrote: Yes it is a good practice to do so. In a situation where you get that message, I normally log off and then login again to see if all the processes have finished doing what they were doing. HD is HD and you can't afford to take risks with it. Better 5 minutes late than sorry! hth Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne It is true, better safe than sorry. I have done it both ways and I don't know, one out of 30 maybe, the file system will become corrupt if you don't safety remove hardware. Then you have to run Chkdsk to fix it. When it won't let you, some program is using the device. For me, Explorer is usually holding it up. So I select another drive and then it normally releases ok. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#4
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removing external hard drive
On Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:15:25 -0500, "Jo-Anne"
wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne I've had this same experience but find that if I move to a different application, or select a different target in Windows Explorer, the hard drive or USB thumb drive can be removed without having to go through the "Safely Remove Hardware" process. |
#5
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removing external hard drive
Thank you, Bill and Tester! (I didn't receive Tester's post in Outlook
Express; I don't know why...) When you say to select another drive, do you mean to double click on another one and then check Safely Remove Hardware again? And what does logging off and in again mean--just that I should exit Safely Remove Hardware and then bring it up again? In the past, I've had particular trouble with Acronis True Image. One time, it didn't "release" the external drive for over 4 hours, even though the drive light was solid the whole time. That's the point when I started making sure that my external drives were set for optimizing for quick removal. Thank you again! Jo-Anne "BillW50" wrote in message ... In , Tester wrote: Yes it is a good practice to do so. In a situation where you get that message, I normally log off and then login again to see if all the processes have finished doing what they were doing. HD is HD and you can't afford to take risks with it. Better 5 minutes late than sorry! hth Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne It is true, better safe than sorry. I have done it both ways and I don't know, one out of 30 maybe, the file system will become corrupt if you don't safety remove hardware. Then you have to run Chkdsk to fix it. When it won't let you, some program is using the device. For me, Explorer is usually holding it up. So I select another drive and then it normally releases ok. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#6
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removing external hard drive
"Antares 531" wrote in message
... On Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:15:25 -0500, "Jo-Anne" wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne I've had this same experience but find that if I move to a different application, or select a different target in Windows Explorer, the hard drive or USB thumb drive can be removed without having to go through the "Safely Remove Hardware" process. Thank you, Antares! I'll definitely try selecting a different target, but I probably will check the Safely Remove Hardware process again just to make sure. Jo-Anne |
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removing external hard drive
On Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:15:25 -0500, "Jo-Anne"
wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. The computer is telling you not to remove and you are asking in the group if it is OK? Good luck with that. |
#8
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removing external hard drive
On 10/04/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know what's got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems alright at first glance. Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon http://safelyremove.com/ Yousuf Khan |
#9
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removing external hard drive
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
... On 10/04/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know what's got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems alright at first glance. Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon http://safelyremove.com/ Yousuf Khan Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well? Jo-Anne |
#10
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removing external hard drive
On 11/04/2011 9:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well? Jo-Anne Give it a shot, it doesn't seem like you have to pay for it, if you don't like it, just uninstall it. Yousuf Khan |
#11
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removing external hard drive
On 4/11/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
"Yousuf wrote in message ... On 10/04/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know what's got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems alright at first glance. Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon http://safelyremove.com/ Yousuf Khan Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well? Jo-Anne I am running it now and it is very nice (on both XP and Windows 7). The trial version doesn't nag until after 30 days. To register they want 20 bucks. Which is probably well worth it. Other features I like about it is that you don't have to disconnect the device to re-enabled it again. And I purposely left Explorer open on an USB drive as a test. Which won't allow the Windows to safely remove because Explorer is using it. And Safely Remove closed the offending Explorer and released the USB drive. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0 Centrino Core2 Duo 2GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 7 |
#12
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removing external hard drive
In ,
Jo-Anne wrote: Thank you, Bill and Tester! (I didn't receive Tester's post in Outlook Express; I don't know why...) When you say to select another drive, do you mean to double click on another one and then check Safely Remove Hardware again? And what does logging off and in again mean--just that I should exit Safely Remove Hardware and then bring it up again? In the past, I've had particular trouble with Acronis True Image. One time, it didn't "release" the external drive for over 4 hours, even though the drive light was solid the whole time. That's the point when I started making sure that my external drives were set for optimizing for quick removal. Thank you again! Hi Jo-Anne! Yes if Explorer is looking at the drive you want to remove, Windows will tell you that it can't right now. So if you select another drive to look at in Explorer, this should now allow Windows to safely remove it. Logging off? Yes logging off is like rebooting, except it logs you out of Windows and returns you back to the Windows logon screen. This closes all applications and when you log back into Windows again, you should have no trouble safely removing any removable drive. Acronis True Image? I have ATI Home 2009 and 2011. And both versions are nearly the same. Sorry I bought the 2011 version now. And ATI has trouble with restoring from some USB drives. So I don't trust ATI too much. I have better luck most of the time with Paragon (they have free versions too, but I have lots of registered ones from them too). Paragon also has adaptive restore (allows moving Windows to another machine), drive alignment, and can clone the drive you are using while Windows is still running. ATI has the same thing as adaptive restore. Although it only comes with the expensive Plus version or pack or whatever you want to call it. ATI doesn't have drive alignment yet (very important on SSD drives), nor can clone a drive while Windows is running. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 |
#13
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removing external hard drive
"BillW50" wrote in message
... In , Jo-Anne wrote: Thank you, Bill and Tester! (I didn't receive Tester's post in Outlook Express; I don't know why...) When you say to select another drive, do you mean to double click on another one and then check Safely Remove Hardware again? And what does logging off and in again mean--just that I should exit Safely Remove Hardware and then bring it up again? In the past, I've had particular trouble with Acronis True Image. One time, it didn't "release" the external drive for over 4 hours, even though the drive light was solid the whole time. That's the point when I started making sure that my external drives were set for optimizing for quick removal. Thank you again! Hi Jo-Anne! Yes if Explorer is looking at the drive you want to remove, Windows will tell you that it can't right now. So if you select another drive to look at in Explorer, this should now allow Windows to safely remove it. Logging off? Yes logging off is like rebooting, except it logs you out of Windows and returns you back to the Windows logon screen. This closes all applications and when you log back into Windows again, you should have no trouble safely removing any removable drive. Acronis True Image? I have ATI Home 2009 and 2011. And both versions are nearly the same. Sorry I bought the 2011 version now. And ATI has trouble with restoring from some USB drives. So I don't trust ATI too much. I have better luck most of the time with Paragon (they have free versions too, but I have lots of registered ones from them too). Paragon also has adaptive restore (allows moving Windows to another machine), drive alignment, and can clone the drive you are using while Windows is still running. ATI has the same thing as adaptive restore. Although it only comes with the expensive Plus version or pack or whatever you want to call it. ATI doesn't have drive alignment yet (very important on SSD drives), nor can clone a drive while Windows is running. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2 Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3 Thank you again, Bill! I'll check into Paragon. Although I bought two copies of ATI, I learned on one of the newsgroups that it's free if you buy certain brands of external drives, including Western Digital, which is what I use. On my latest computer, I installed the free version, and I don't see any real difference between it and my paid-for one. I've never logged off; but it's good to know that that should release my hard drive if the occasion arises again. Jo-Anne |
#14
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removing external hard drive
"BillW50" wrote in message
... On 4/11/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote: "Yousuf wrote in message ... On 10/04/2011 8:15 PM, Jo-Anne wrote: Using WinXP. If I have my external hard drive set to "optimize for quick removal," do I still have to use "Safely Remove Hardware"? I have been doing so, and often it will say for several minutes that the drive can't be removed. Thank you! Jo-Anne There is a 3rd party utility that claims to do the job a bit more thoroughly than the default Windows application by letting you know what's got the device locked, and killing its lock. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems alright at first glance. Safely Remove Hardware in one click! USB, SATA, Firewire. Keyboard shortcuts for stopping, clear device names, remove a device from the icon http://safelyremove.com/ Yousuf Khan Thank you, Yousuf Khan! If anyone has used this program, does it work well? Jo-Anne I am running it now and it is very nice (on both XP and Windows 7). The trial version doesn't nag until after 30 days. To register they want 20 bucks. Which is probably well worth it. Other features I like about it is that you don't have to disconnect the device to re-enabled it again. And I purposely left Explorer open on an USB drive as a test. Which won't allow the Windows to safely remove because Explorer is using it. And Safely Remove closed the offending Explorer and released the USB drive. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v3.0 Centrino Core2 Duo 2GHz - 1.5GB - Windows 7 Sounds good, Bill! I'll bookmark it for now. Jo-Anne |
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