Can't safely eject devices.

[Vectraat]

I seem to be running into an issue where I can't safely eject USB Mass Storage Devices even after reboot. Not sure what is causing this. Any idea? Even if I only access a single file and close the file down after, I still receive this message. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're certain there's nothing using the drive, you can just yank it out. The primary reason why the command exists is to ensure that any pending write operations actually get done.

[Vectraat]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

If you're certain there's nothing using the drive, you can just yank it out. 

Well, you never can be certain with Windows can you. I'm not actively accessing/transferring anything to the drive, but for peace of mind I'd prefer to be able to safely eject to avoid the possibility of file corruption. I do find it highly unusual that even after a reboot the issue still persists when that has always worked in the past. I tend to work with a lot of external storage plugged in all the time so dealing with this is a bit of a nightmare. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, Vectraat said:

Well, you never can be certain with Windows can you. I'm not actively accessing/transferring anything to the drive, but for peace of mind I'd prefer to be able to safely eject to avoid the possibility of file corruption. I do find it highly unusual that even after a reboot the issue still persists when that has always worked in the past. I tend to work with a lot of external storage plugged in all the time so dealing with this is a bit of a nightmare. 

You have to find which process is using the drive. If it's persistent, my gut feeling is Windows parked a system level file in there.

 

If you shut down the PC, you can unplug it and be on your merry way if you're that paranoid.

[Vectraat]

2 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

You have to find which process is using the drive. If it's persistent, my gut feeling is Windows parked a system level file in there.

Ok, and how do I quickly and accurately find out which process is using the drive? I mean, I can load up task manager but there's kind of a lot of things running. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

4 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Ok, and how do I quickly and accurately find out which process is using the drive? I mean, I can load up task manager but there's kind of a lot of things running. 

I'm not sure how effective this is but: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html

 

Alternatively there are tools built in Windows: https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/find-process-locked-file-openfiles-utility/

[Vectraat]

14 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

I'm not sure how effective this is but: https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/opened_files_view.html

 

Alternatively there are tools built in Windows: https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/find-process-locked-file-openfiles-utility/

Hmm, someone else where told me to uninstall all of my universal serial bus controllers to try and solve this issue and Windows will re-detect them upon reboot. Does this sound plausible or crazy? Also, could this be an indexing issue? 

[Mira Yurizaki]

13 minutes ago, Vectraat said:

Hmm, someone else where told me to uninstall all of my universal serial bus controllers to try and solve this issue and Windows will re-detect them upon reboot. Does this sound plausible or crazy? Also, could this be an indexing issue? 

Drivers aren't supposed to be necessary (in fact, I don't recall ever needing to install USB drivers in forever). But if the problem device is because of the drive, it may be a problem with the drive or the port.