cannot stop USB hard drive

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:13 pm

When I try to do the liitle greeen "stop device" arrow it says
*The device 'Generic Volume' cannot be stopped because a progam is still accessing it*

I cannot tell you how annoying this is. Memory sticks never do this, and driver reinstall doesn't help. Compression and indexing services are deselected in disk properties. What the heck!

No activity lights on either, so its not even accessing something other than its own bunghole idea of "in use."

Western Digital USB 2.0 hard drive

Any ideas welcome

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:41 pm

Something has open files on the disk. Think if you have any programs that might be using files on the drive other then standard windows files and close them. Try running chkdsk /f on the drive from command prompt.

JMEaT · Post by **JMEaT** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 7:07 am

You could disable write behind caching. Win2k messes up my external memory card drives that way. Performance will take a hit, though.

You don't have a page file on the drive do you?

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:42 am

Reboot. The explorer has the drive hogged (probably a bug w/ Windoze), I see that w/ my USB drive and memory sticks after I've them connected & used them for a while.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:04 pm

Just turn the drive off~!

how easy is that!!

ENJOY

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:46 pm

I've had that happen with my thumbdrive too. Just either unplug/turn off the drive or select the actual drive letter and then click on stop. Win2k is real bitchy about USB devices. XP could care less.

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 6:27 am

I've had this happen before. Invariably (in my case), there was a Windows Explorer window open to a folder on that hard drive. I'm using the cheapie CompUSA USB 2.0 HDD enclosures, so YMMV.

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 10:32 am

Well, I never have anything open when it happens. THanks for the input.

I usually just pull the plug.

Mankind has walked on the moon, but Microsoft and Western Digital can't work this trivial crap out?

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 7:35 pm

I have this 1394 drive has a on/off switch! and is the size of a paperback

Firewire blows the doors off of USB

suicide eddie · Post by **suicide eddie** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 8:53 am

yep disable stuff for that drive, system restore, write caching, recycle bin protection, a/v boot scanning, file sync etc. windows and other apps trying to be helpfull and getting in the way as usual.