safely removing external USB drive

"philo" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:ibp2lj$434$(E-Mail Removed)...
> On 11/13/2010 10:25 AM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>> "Paul"<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:ibm6ic$1fn$(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> Jo-Anne wrote:
>>>> Sometimes when I've backed up my internal hard drive to an external USB
>>>> hard drive with Acronis True Image, I can't "safely remove" the
>>>> external
>>>> drive. I click on Safely Remove Hardware and get told the device cannot
>>>> be stopped now and I should try later. Tonight I've been trying to
>>>> remove
>>>> the external drive for at least 3 hours and am still getting the same
>>>> message--and now and then I see the light flash on the drive. It looks
>>>> like the drive is going to stay connected at least til morning.
>>>>
>>>> Is there something I can do to be able to remove the drive in a
>>>> reasonable amount of time without running the risk of losing data?
>>>>
>>>> Thank you!
>>>>
>>>> Jo-Anne
>>>
>>> There is a thread here on the subject. In particular, the
>>> accessing of a ".tib" file on the affected disk.
>>>
>>> http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=242607
>>>
>>> To analyze, you can get a copy of Process Explorer, click "Explorer.EXE"
>>> then look in the lower pane for "File" entries. You might see the open
>>> file
>>> on the external drive that way. At least, in the previous
>>> thread, that is what the poster was checking.
>>>
>>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/s.../bb896653.aspx
>>>
>>> There is a second program called "Handle", and it runs from the
>>> Command Prompt. I tried changing directory to where I have
>>> this unpacked, and typed "handle", and it seems to give me
>>> a list of open files on my system. An open file prevents
>>> Safe Removal. Virtually everything open right now, is a file on
>>> my C: partition (and of course, there's little chance of
>>> "Safely Removing" a C: partition).
>>>
>>> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/s.../bb896655.aspx
>>>
>>> I believe the person who wrote Handle, thinks Process Explorer
>>> is a functional equivalent, but you might like the output of
>>> Handle better.
>>>
>>> You can always redirect the output to a file, such as
>>>
>>> handle> output.txt
>>>
>>> and then review the contents of output.txt with Notepad.
>>> Otherwise, there may be too much output from Handle, to be
>>> able to scroll back the Command Prompt window and see it all.
>>> If you see your external drive letter, in the output.txt file,
>>> then you can determine which process is doing it.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
>>
>> Thank you, Paul! For now, I did what pjp suggested (this morning I still
>> was
>> getting the same message as last night). I'll check out the other methods
>> too, though. I did check processes in Windows Task Manager, and nothing
>> seemed to be happening. At that point I did a shutdown/restart and
>> removed
>> the drive during shutdown.
>>
>> Jo-Anne
>>
>>
>
>
> Not a good idea if you disconnected at a point when the drive was still
> mounted...
>
> you should have waited for the machine to have shut off


Thank you, Philo! I'll do that next time.

Jo-Anne