How do I remove an External Hard Drive?

Sounds like an easy question, right? Well I'm using an Acer 11.6 inch A022 netbook and WD 320GB Passport external Hard Drive. When I go to safely remove the drive (and all programs have been closed), I still get a message telling me that the hard drive is still in use and I need to close all programs to safely remove. How can I get around this or fix it? I'm using Windows 7 64bit. Thanks.

 

At first go to properties of HDD in device manager for example and set it's policy for fast turning off (not using cache).

And I use USB removal Tool

 

Thanks, I will try this later today!

 

As James D noted, write-caching is usually the suspect, but be aware that you might notice a change in the drive's performance if it isn't delaying writes. If you have indexing enabled and disabling write-caching has no effect, you might also want to look at whether windows is trying to index it.

 

I just turn off my computer properly.
Problem solved.

 

Haha, thats exactly what I was thinking. If the laptop is off then there can't be any programs running and you're free to disconnect and connect as you please.

 

I have indexing and write cache turned off, and whenever my external drives does this to me, I simply wait until the light on my HDD dock stays solid blue (meaning no activity) and then I'll just power down the drive and remove the eSATA cable. Probably not 100% safe, sure, but I haven't had any problems with this method since receiving this setup in June. As for the USB drive, I typcially do the same, and again no problems for me so far.

I rarely experience this though, and when it happens it's usually because I was using TrueCrypt to access a file on the external drive.

 

I just pull the USB cord out. No big deal and never had an issue

 

Improperly removing the drive can corrupt the file system, not advisable.

 

I use this one Safely Remove Hardware better alternative
specially if i'm juggling multiple externaldrives/flash disks/phone connected to my pc

it's a paid app though (good thing it's supplied free on where i work)

 

I used to care in the old days when it mattered with OS 6/ Windows 95 and stuff like that, but these days it is a waste of time. If you aren't transferring data to your external drive/memory card or whatever, 100 out of 100 times, nothing is going to happen by simply unplugging it. I think the last time I "safely removed" external storage was 6 years ago.

 

I thought the same until... should I continue? USB safely remove is great as I said before.

 

That kinda logic seems fine, til it actually happens to you. It's like saying well I can speed 99/100 times til I get caught, then on the 100/100th time, you get caught. But of course it is your decision, dealing with logical failure isn't fun.