Windows 7 Can't Disconnect External Drive?

[Heaven or Hell]

Why is it that so many Western Digital products suck at what they do? Every time I tried using a storage device by WD it's been acting up. One time a drive wasn't even being detected by a computer (or other computers I've tried it on) and now this new 1 TB external drive is not wanting to disconnect safely from my laptop. I did a ton of searching online and apparently, despite it not actually saving anything it's still running processes as if the person who made it assumed you don't ever want to disconnect it from your computer (which is stupid for the fact one shuts off his computer eventually at one poine) and instead want to constantly back up weekly.

This is not what I want to do. I made one backup and that's all I want to do at the moment. I also want to shut off my computer, but if I do that while I still get the error message "can't disconnect external drive since it's still in use", wouldn't shutting the computer down then be equivalent to unplugging the drive before it's "safe" to remove? I literally waited a full day to get my 350 GB info on this drive, and I don't want it to get corrupted through unplugging or even shutting down the computer when the drive is "still in use".

Are people really serious that normally you would have to download a third party program called Unlocker to fix this nonsense? Why the hell hasn't WD just set up their drives in such a way they work like useful flash drives? Because when a big drive can't even be removed safely it's pretty useless having it for even backing up data.

Please let me know if there are options besides downloading third party utilities to be alright in this case. As for looking for applications and processes via ctrl + alt + delete, I couldn't tell what the heck was associated with WD and what wasn't, or what was causing the problem.

By the way, it says it's "in use" but I am NOT seeing it download or backup anything (because I already finished this hours ago). Could it be that it's saving something that I'm not aware of? Or is it simply "connected" to my computer and that is one of WD's definitions of "currently in use"? If the latter is true, I guess logging off/shutting down won't do anything then, but I'd still like to be sure.

 

[Joe S]

Is this one of the drives with Smartware? I have one that I have to log off then back on to disconnect it. A lot of things could be causing it. What did software you use for backup?
Joe

 

[Heaven or Hell]

No nothing like that. I used Windows Backup to do it...the default backup software on my Windows 7 computer by Microsoft themselves, which reminds me, I'm putting my system specs in my signature since it'll help people assist me in the future.

Can you or anyone else assist me in this any further?

 

[Heaven or Hell]

---Edit---

 

[Joe S]

Does the drive do this if it's connected and you do not backup? Mine acts up after I run GoodSync. If I just use it with copy or move then it disconnects OK. It might also be the AV checking all the new data. I've never been able to find the actual process just the connection to GooodSync.
Joe

 

[Heaven or Hell]

Does the drive do this if it's connected and you do not backup? Mine acts up after I run GoodSync. If I just use it with copy or move then it disconnects OK. It might also be the AV checking all the new data. I've never been able to find the actual process just the connection to GooodSync.
Joe

The backup has finished and I'm trying to safely remove it. Says it's still in use when I know for a fact it's been done yesterday. Yeah, someone told me an AV is probably the culprit. Darn McAfee, lol. Oh well, apparently unplugging as long as it's not writing does nothing...

 

[catilley1092]

I've had the same issue before, and sometimes still do. Both with USB Flash Drives, 1TB WD & Samsung backup drives (connected through a docking station). When HDD's were cheap, that was the best way to go, is buy a top line internal desktop drive, use either a docking station or aluminum enclosure (by all means, don't use the plastic enclosures, as they tend to overheat your HDD). That way, you know what you have.

What I had to do once was to simply shut down the PC. The shutdown may hang for a few seconds longer than normal, sometimes it asks whether to "force" shutdown, I don't do that. Windows 7 does a good job of shutting down processes before shutting down the computer. And I've never lost data in doing so.

As to the cause, anyone's guess is as good as mine would be. I would like to say the AV, but can't with 100% certainty make that claim, so I won't. There has been times when installing programs from the .exe files on Flash drives, it won't uninstall until a reboot, I've done it countless times with no negative issues.

My backup program is Macrium Reflect (free) for full backups, Todo Backup 4 (free) for file/data backups. I like Macrium for imaging & restoring, you restore 1 partition at a time. Todo, with image restores, it's all or nothing. But I like the fact that their free version includes file/data backups.

I believe that when this issue arises again, simply shut down Windows 7 normally. You should be fine.

Cat

 

[Saltgrass]

Some times, information is necessary in diagnosing problems, or at least tying your situation to others. The type of hard drive, as to whether it is a model, or an external case with a WD drive enclosed. The type of connection, USB, eSATA, or whatever, makes quite a bit of difference.

Some external drives do not need to be safely removed and the other day, I saw a flash card reader where if you safely removed its contents, would mess up the USB port.

When the drive is plugged in, go into device manager and see what it shows for the drive setup in its properties. Check how the drive is set for Write-caching on the Policies tab. Go to the Detail tab and look for the Safe Removal Required option and if it is true or false.