How to safely remove a USB drive when "Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because a program is still using it."?

Question

Sometimes when I try to remove an external USB hard drive I get the message:

Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because a program is still using it.

I tried closing all programs on the Desktop, but it still won't give the "safe to remove" message. I am generally able to make flash drives safe to remove without a problem.

How to safely remove a USB drive when I get this message?

I have Windows XP and Vista if that matters.

score 21 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:17

21

Look for RemoveDrive on this page (direct link to the Drive Tools page RemoveDrive tool section).
Those pages also have good related information.

The RemoveDrive tool is useful also when
you Do not get ‘Safely remove’ option in Tray for USB storage devices.

edited Mar 20 '17 at 10:17

Community

1

answered Sep 06 '09 at 18:12

nik

57,042

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 12 '12 at 02:55

9

Often this will be because the drive is being indexed; right click the drive>properties, and uncheck index. Or the AV is monitoring the drive - turn off AV to test this.

answered Apr 12 '12 at 02:55

Computer service Perth

91

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 25 '18 at 05:16

Right click on the properties of the USB drive in Windows Explorer.
In the popup window click on "Hardware".
Identify the drive and left click on it once to highlight it, then click the properties box.
Click on "Change settings".
Click on the Policies tab and select "Optimize for quick removal" and click OK.

If you're sure that none of your own processes are still in use on this USB just pull it out.

[Edit: Not found official Microsoft documentation of this method, but Cnet has an article about it: Quickly remove USB devices without using Safe Removal .]

harrymc · Answer 4 · 2013-10-20T18:48:22.277

There are several reasons to USB being undismountable:

It's in use. Please note that if you're looking at the disk in Explorer, then it's in use!
Windows is finishing copying a big file to or from the disk (rarely the reason)
A bug in Windows causes conime.exe to get stuck on the disk (it may safely be killed)
If the USB drive is formatted as NTFS, the journal of all file updates may still be open
If disk indexing is on for the drive, Windows may be furiously indexing all files on it

My advice is to:

Make sure the USB drive is not defined as indexed.
Wait, and then try again. It might work a few seconds later on.
Buy Zentimo ($29.90) that does a good job of trying to remove the disk. Even if it fails, it still tells you which programs are using what files (I paid).

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 01 '16 at 16:30

Quick Way to Find Process/File Open that is Preventing Unmount:

I just figured this out. With Process Explorer (free download) this is really easy.

Download, unzip and run procexp.exe
Choose from the "Find" menu, "Find Handle or DLL..." or hit Cntl-F
Enter only the drive letter (followed by ":\") in the search text box

This will show you all the open files on your removable volume, the processes that own the file handle and the PIDs of the processes. Double click to highlight the process in the main window (top) and file (bottom). From there you can right-click the process to kill it or right-click the file to close the file handle.

score 5 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 20 '16 at 21:16

5

I found the free USB Disk Ejector to be very useful:

A program that allows you to quickly remove drives in Windows. It can eject USB disks, Firewire disks and memory cards. It is a quick, flexible, portable alternative to using Windows’ “Safely Remove Hardware” dialog.

edited Jul 20 '16 at 21:16

Amazon Dies In Darkness

9,990

answered May 19 '12 at 09:43

vass

51

score 4 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 02 '23 at 11:02

The System, usually, is not the culprit in this case. $TxfLogContainer00000000000000000002 and other NTFS log handles are not, in fact, the reason for this problem. Sysinternals Process Explorer will usually fail to notice handles opened by background processes that actually block the drive. Or there might be no handles opened at all, yet still the process can block the USB drive.

To find out what process is the actual culprit do this:

Press WIN + R
Launch eventvwr.msc
Open Windows Logs -> System
Examine latest warnings that state The application ... with process id x stopped the removal or ejection for the device USB ...

You will probably find System in there, but again, you can only suspect the System if it is the only one among this warnings. In my case, the actual culprit was LightingService.exe process. It is a part of ASUS AURA RGB lightning control software. I have no idea why it was blocking the drive. The disk had 0 write/read activity, but it was still spinning constantly without stopping. Maybe it tried to control the "RGB" on the drive? It seems that other people had the same problem, so this is a critical bug in a driver software that was never fixed.

The irony in this story, is, that I was blaming Windows for this bug all along. But it turned out, faulty 3rd party software was the culprit. Bizarre.

score 4 · Answer 8 · edited Sep 09 '11 at 08:23

4

This is by no means a good answer, but you can always shut down the computer and remove the USB device.

edited Sep 09 '11 at 08:23

Peter Mortensen

12,326

answered Sep 06 '09 at 18:34

villares

433

score 4 · Answer 9 · answered Jun 06 '12 at 11:35

If it's none of the pedestrian/common options, it could be you have the drive listed as 'shared' on a network and have accessed it via another computer. In my case, even though the remote computer was off, it still had a lock on the directories. Unshare and it should work if that's the case.

score 2 · Answer 10 · edited Oct 28 '16 at 06:14

Simple fix (Windows 7 Professional 64-bit):

Change the drive letter, and if you want to keep the same letter, change it back.
The drive can now be unmounted.

When you change the drive letter, it disconnects the drive from all processes that might be using it, as the warning message states. Once that happens, you can then unmount it the usual way.

If you don't know how to change drive letter, follow these instructions.

Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Storage --> Disk Management (wait ~10 seconds for information to appear.)
Select the problem drive under volume heading.
Scroll to that drive in the lower part of window.
Right-click on the drive, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Change the drive letter to one not reserved for another drive.
Acknowledge the warning message.

If you wish the drive to retain the original letter, simply switch it back. The drive can now be unmounted.

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Jul 15 '21 at 19:28

2

I disabled write caching on the USB device. Now it ejects perfectly fine.

Disable write caching on the USB device

Steps:

Win+R, type diskmgmt.msc and run it
Right click USB device -> Hardware tab -> Click properties
Policies tab -> Uncheck "Enable write caching on the device"

It says enabling this causes data loss or corruption where there's power outage or equipment failure. So I prefer it disabled.

edited Jul 15 '21 at 19:28

zx485

2,337

answered Jul 15 '21 at 14:14

Pavan

21

score 2 · Answer 12 · edited Feb 03 '19 at 14:44

2

I think this is because Windows itself is still finalising the writes to the hard drive. I get the same message if I try to disconnect straight after copying some files. If I wait until the drive has stopped spinning then it disconnects without any problem.

edited Feb 03 '19 at 14:44

DavidPostill

162,382

answered Sep 06 '09 at 18:10

ChrisF

41,540

score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Jan 07 '17 at 15:50

The 2 most reliable ways are ones that nobody has suggested yet because they are sometimes the most inconvenient:

Log off. Log back on. Try again to safely eject the USB device (via the Windows tool). If even that didn't work, then:
Shut down your computer entirely. Then simply unplug the USB device without asking permission.

score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Dec 18 '17 at 09:49

For me changing the drive letter did it. I could not kill the accessing process cause it was PID 4 (system itself), which opened H:\$EXTEND..... (did see it in Process Explorer).

After changing the drive letter i could savely remove it..... WOW, Windows is a never ending adventure game..... :))))

score 0 · Answer 15 · edited Dec 27 '13 at 10:14

0

Take a look for programs installed recently, which can prevent safe HDD disconnection.

In my case it was Magical Defrag 2: any newly connected disk with new letter assigned was automatically marked, so now after unmark I can safely remove the USB drive.

edited Dec 27 '13 at 10:14

Jawa

3,679

answered Dec 27 '13 at 09:21

user284897

9

score -1 · Answer 16 · answered May 18 '17 at 05:58

Try hotswap free utility, you can download here http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm.

Ensure to activate Safely removable devices by right click the icon hotswap on systray - device type - Safely removable devices.
Then you can remove USB drive by left click icon hotswap on systray and select your removable drive.

score -1 · Answer 17 · answered Feb 11 '18 at 18:59

this method worked to me 1) : Run -> "diskmgmt.msc" -> Find your drive in the physical disk list (bottom pane) -> right-click the drive (the left-most part), not the partition -> Click "Offline"

2) : Run -> "cmd.exe" -> type "diskpart" -> type "list disk", find your disk # -> type "select disk x", where x is your disk's # from the last step -> type "offline disk". Now you can exit the command prompt or just type "exit" at diskpart, then close the prompt."

I use "remove all dismount" on the diskpart command to kick the disk out. can't make it simpler now as Devcon command couldn't kill the disk out soon either.

now use the safely remove hardware and eject media tool

Thanks to

Reizaal Abdul Aziz

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/profile/bf1a3358-a39a-4c32-bc7e-692576439363

score -1 · Answer 18 · answered Dec 17 '18 at 20:59

-1

Thank you all for this windows problem that many have problems with, this is my answer to it. Easy : not click the safe remove icon on taskbar but goto the USB stick in explorer and Eject there, Solved.

answered Dec 17 '18 at 20:59

Addy Downlord

1

score -1 · Answer 19 · answered May 13 '20 at 16:23

This worked for me:

Open task manager
Go to the Details tab and close explorer.exe (it will close all your opened folders)
In the task manager press File->New-> type explorer.exe to bring it back and then try right click on the USB picture and press eject:

score -1 · Answer 20 · answered Sep 06 '09 at 18:08

This is due to the fact that there is at least a process/program that is still accessing your USB drive. It may not be enough if you just close all the programs on dekstop, if you are copying folders from/to the USB hard disk, you will get this message.

Try and find what process is holding the resource and either complete or close the process and you should be able to remove the USB hard disk without any problems.

Do let us know how it goes.

score -2 · Answer 21 · answered Aug 15 '14 at 20:00

I've noticed this a lot. What we do is to share and then unshare the drive. It's had a 99% success rate. I have no clue why it works, but time to time it says another user is accessing the drive... even though I just shared it only to unshare it. Try that. You'd be surprised at the success rate.

How to safely remove a USB drive when "Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because a program is still using it."?

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