USB issues after Windows 7 install

Hi there

I upgraded 2 of my comps to Windows 7. 1 from XP and another from Vista. The computers are able to detect the devices with no problem. I am able to see the "Safely remove the device" icon when I want to take it out, but even after the pop up notifying me that I can safely remove the device, the device is still running afterwards. In my case, they are external hard drives.

Does anyone know why the devices still run even after clicking the safely remove icon?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

After telling you that you can safely remove it, does Windows show it as ejected in My Computer or the device manager.

 

In My Computer, after ejecting, the icon for the HDD is not there anymore but in the device manager, it is shown as still there. Attached is a screen shot.

Thanks for your response

 

Check to see if you have write caching enabled on those external HDDs. If you do, then even after you use the "safely remove the device" icon, they have to take the time to finish flushing out their write cache before they can shut down. I think even if you've already ejected them, they'll remain in your device manager until they're physically disconnected; Windows OS doesn't know they're there anymore, but it might still be drawing power and thus will continue to show up in the device manager.

 

I assumed that this is normal W7 behaviour. The led doesn't blink anymore after safe remove so it's not writing on the disk, guessed it's safe to remove it then.

 

So there is no fix..its just a win 7 problem? With XP, when I ejected the device, the external hard drive turned off immediately after.

 

I dont know whether this makes a difference or not, but I have realized that after A WHILE after I safely eject it....I mean like maybe 10 plus mins or so, the driver will turn off.

Thanks for any advice!