Cant eject any external drives..any ideas?

[iamloco724]

im running windows xp..i have 5 external drives plus an ipod

i cant safely remove any of these drives including the ipod ive tried waiting hours after they were last used still doesnt work

never use to have this problem i have the same software setup ive always had

ive tried a program called unlocker or something like that but basically it doesnt find the files on any of the drives being in use

i have no problem ejecting my flash drives though

theres gotta be a way to fix this i dont want to just pull out my drives and dont want to have to shutdown to remove them

any ideas and help would be greatly appreciated

 

[MindoverMaster]

Do you have the latest updates for XP?

 

[iamloco724]

yes i do..is there a specific update that address this or your just asking?

 

[MindoverMaster]

I'm not sure, just wondering if you're missing anything. Can you go into the safe remove window?

 

[iamloco724]

yes i can if you mean the window when you double click the tray icon

 

[iamloco724]

someone on another forum indirectly solved my problem they told me this

"go into device manager and find your external disks and ipod.

right click on the first drive and hit properties

under the policies tab, there should be something along the lines of performance and quick removal stuff. click the radio button that says "Quick Removal."

do those same steps for your other drives. if you find your ipod, windows thinks mine is a digital camera, do thaose same steps for it, if possible.

now you don't have to use the "safely remove hardware" button again! It MAY reduce disk performance, but it is also safer if, say a dog or little kid trips over the cord and yanks it out. (I never noticed a difference in performance anyways, but that's just my opinion)"

so i went to do this and it was already on this setting i changed it to the other option and im able to eject fine now

so now my question is is one really better then the other.. and if i leave it on the one he told me about that means i can just pull the plug on my device without worry?

 

[MindoverMaster]

It is not good practice, but from my experience, as long as no data is passing between the computer to device, it is safe to remove. I have never lost a flash drive because of this.