Unable to eject thumb drive in Vista

I'm unable to eject a 128 MB Sony Micro Vault thumb drive in Vista. Gives the message that some files are in use even when the drive is blank! Also, the safely remove icon for the usb drive does not appear when the usb drive is plugged in and hence I select eject by right clicking on the drive in My Computer. Any help would be appreciated. In the end I just the pull the drive off after closing all the files from the drive.

 

I always pull the drive out. I dont use the safely remove hardware thing.

 

I used to do that, when I was using XP, but Vista always manages to corrupt at least one of my files unless I use the Safe Hardware Removal.

If I were you, I'd just copy my files to my HD, then reformat the thumb drive, and copy the files back.

 

lol... XP or Vista never had corrupted any files... I'm not using a 128mb stick... mine is 2gb.

 

No one mentioned this is the wrong forum?

 

Most of the time I do that, too. I just seem to forget to do it the right way for anything I have plugged in. So far I've not had any problems.

 

u didn't happen to set ur thumb drive as readyboost device?

cheers ...

 

Go to services.msc from Run... Disable Readyboost...this should solve the problem

 

Then you are not smart, or you don't care if you lose all the data on the drive.

 

i screwed up my External HD i think....

 

But do I need to disable this even if I have not selected the readyboost option in the properties window of the drive?

 

Does it show up in My Computer (XP) or Computer (Vista)? If so right click it, a menu should appear, select eject on the menu, then it should vanish from Computer. If it did then your're all set!

 

Almost. "Eject" is not what you want, it's "Safely Remove". Eject is for something like an external DVD drive, and it will eject the disc. Safely Remove is for removing the drive itself. In the case of a thumb drive, you want "Safely Remove", "Eject" might be there, but it's useless.

 

Yup, "Eject" is what I tried since the safely remove option was unavailable but even this gives the error that some files are currently in use.

 

i always wondered about my western digital external drive.. whenever i plug in that particular one i dont get the little icon in the system tray giving me the option to safely remove it. it seems that some external hard drives show the icon and some don't.. anybody else notice this?? is this some kind of high tech vista thing..? this is for my new vista 32 bit laptop. the icon always showed up on my old XP laptop, even for my western digital.

 

There is two options, you can choose to pull out the USB without safe remove, or vice versa. But even that, nothing will happen unless you're copying some files. I use 220GB of external storage, which is 4 USB drive and just unplug it most of the time.

 

Just pull it out as long as the activity led is not flashing there should be no problem.

I never use the "safely eject hardware feature" and I have never lost any files.

 

I almost always use safely remove hardware. Don't want to play with fire.

 

ahhhh. after clicking on everything i finally found where you can choose between the two options. but even when i chose to use the safely remove, the icon doesn't show......hm..

 

Just pull it out. If any data gets corrupted then at least you (should) have a backup.

 

Once I accidentally pulled out a thumb drive without safely ejecting it. Consequences? Next time I tried to access the drive it crashed the computer and got wiped clean. Fortunately I have a backup.