You can’t just pick up and pull out a flash drive from a USB connector. Improperly disconnecting any drive can lead to its failure and data corruption.
This is the correct way to disconnect a USB flash drive from a computer. If everything is done correctly, then the operating system:
- will cancel all active read/write operations on the flash drive;
- "will inform" everyone running programs, What removable drive will be disabled;
- will “notify” the user if it is impossible to stop interaction with the drive in some current processes.
Safely removing a flash drive is a guarantee of the safety of the data stored on it. This is especially important if the user encrypts information.
How to perform a safe removal?
Let's take Windows 10 as an example, but in older versions this procedure is not fundamentally different.
- Via the "Taskbar". Move the cursor to the lower right corner of the display, click on the first icon on the left (up arrow) - the hidden icons. Look for the flash drive icon there - when you hover your cursor over it, “Safely remove devices and disks” will appear. Click on the icon with the left mouse button and click on “Eject X”, where X is the name of the USB drive.
- Through context menu . Open “This PC” and find the required flash drive in the list of removable drives. Right-click on it - a context menu will appear on the side. In the list of commands, find the line “Extract” and click it.
IMPORTANT! The above approaches should end with a system alert - “The equipment can be removed (removed).”
What problems may arise when removing a flash drive?
Sometimes the computer doesn't want to let go removable storage. This is usually due to one of two factors:
- data caching. Information is not always recorded in real time, where you see a status window where progress is shown as a percentage. operating system can cache data - transfer it to RAM. In fact, writing to the drive will occur later, if free resources are available;
- process failures of individual utilities. For example, photo editors are able to constantly check for pictures on drives connected to the computer. This process can go in cycles. Then he needs to have access to the flash drive all the time and he will not “allow” it to be disconnected in a secure way.
In any case, the system will notify you that it is impossible to remove the drive - a corresponding message will appear. The easiest way to get out of this situation is to turn off active programs and close all windows. This also applies to applications running in background: antivirus, instant messengers, OS optimizers.
Problem with universal volume
The most common challenge when retrieving safely is error "Windows cannot stop the Generic Volume device". This means that there are processes that are using the drive, but the system cannot stop them automatically.
Solving problems with a universal volume
Safe Eject Shortcut Error
It happens that the icon designed to launch safe extraction disappears in the “Taskbar”.
Restoring the Safe Removal Icon
First of all, use manually running the extraction command.
The algorithm of actions is as follows:
- press the key combination "Windows+R"- a window will appear "Run";
- copy the request into the window line "RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll";
- confirm the launch by clicking on OK;
- A safe removal window will appear, where you need to select the appropriate drive and click on “Stop”.
If this does not help, then use the official Microsoft USB Problem Diagnostic Tool. Download, install and run the utility, then follow the instructions that appear - they are extremely simple.
If this does not help, then edit the registry, for which you need:
- launch window "Run", as in the first step of the previous method;
- enter a query into the line "regedit" and launch it by clicking OK;
- in the new window, pay attention to the panel on the left, consisting of many lines - sequentially get to the line along the path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER => Softaware => Microsoft => Windows => CurrentVersion => Applets => SysTray;
- look at right side, where there will be 3 lines - click first "Services", in the window that appears, set the value to “1b”, save the changes by clicking on OK, then do the same with the line "HotPlugsFlags", but set it to “2”.
- reboot your computer.
It happens that not only the safe eject icon disappears, but also the drive icon itself. Most often, this is due, in particular, to highly specialized ones - autorans. To combat them, perform a full system scan with an antivirus - preferably not a free one. In addition, you can use special utilities Anti-Autoran or Online Solutions Autorun Manager .
In operating rooms Microsoft systems: Windows XP, Win 7 and Win 8, there is an option to safely or securely remove the device. It is customary to use it in cases when you have already completed work with any USB drive, flash drive or external hard drive, and you need to disconnect it without harming the computer and media. But there are times when (lower functional Windows string).
In such a situation, many simply pull out the drive, but this is a fundamentally wrong decision, it is important to get the missing “safe removal” icon back, and you will now learn how to do this
Please note: if you take into account any media devices, such as smartphones or cameras, when they are connected to your computer, Windows may not show the safe removal icon at all. This is explained by the fact that in order to correctly disconnect such media, you need to either turn it off (cameras) or manipulate its display (in the case of a tablet or phone), that is, safe removal usb devices is carried out on it itself.
So, to safely remove a device in Windows 7, Win8 or WinXP versions, you move the cursor to the famous icon in the lower right corner of the screen and right-click on it, selecting the desired media. You need to do such manipulations because in this way you make it clear to the operating system that work with the media is finished and you are going to safely remove the flash drive. In this case, all operations with this device are completed and the risk of information loss disappears, and often even the power supply to your flash drive or hard drive. As a result, they cannot be used.
If you do not use the option to safely remove the device and remove the flash drive from the laptop, the flash drive will simply burn out or the information you wrote to it will be damaged. Don't forget to safely remove the flash drive! Of course, this happens really rarely, but a certain risk is always present. If the flash drive cannot be safely removed, then read on.
How to get the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon back
A problem occurs when removing a USB storage device, associated with the disappearance of the corresponding secure removal icon, if the flash drive is inserted into the connector and is functioning correctly. In such situations, do not despair, because there are a number of actions to solve this problem. Flash drive not ejected safely?
Fig.1. The first thing you can do is call address bar, the simplest combination of keyboard buttons "Win + R"And in the line of the window that appears, write the following combination of characters: RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
Fig.2. By clicking the “OK” button, a window will pop up, as requiredNote: To avoid mistakes, just copy the above line.
This directory is applicable in systems Windows versions XP, 7, and also 8.
This dialog box is full version a small sign that will appear after you click on the “Safely Remove Hardware” image in the taskbar, so that all connected media will be displayed here. You can easily select a flash drive or HDD, which should be disabled by selecting it with one click and clicking the “Stop” button.
After performing all the manipulations described above and successful (correct) disconnection USB storage, if the “safely remove device” icon on the panel previously disappeared, the icon you were looking for will return to its rightful place, in the corner of the screen near the clock.
If the treasured icon still continues to disappear from the corner with the clock and volume mixer, do the following:
- Right-click (RMB) on the desktop and find the “New” function and then “Shortcut” in the menu that appears.
- Copy the command mentioned earlier into the window that opens.
- Now, by clicking the “Next” button at the bottom of the window, you can name the shortcut whatever you want. This way, you will always have the opportunity to quickly safely remove the flash drive and be sure that everything is in order with the drive.
Another way to safely remove your device in Windows
You can safely remove a flash drive from a computer if the icon of the same name is missing using one more simple method, which we will divide into two points to simplify perception:
You are required to go to “My Computer” and right-click on the media that you are going to disconnect. Now, select the “Properties” function and open the “Hardware” tab in the window that appears.
Fig.1. Now you just need to select the media you need to extract, click on “Properties” and activate the “Change settings” option in the window that just pops up- In the dialog box shown in the screenshot below, open the “Policies” tab. It is here that the line we need is displayed in highlighted font.
Thus, if Safely Removing Hardware does not work for you in Windows 7 or another version of the operating system, you can always overcome this problem by following the very simple instructions outlined in this text.
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Regardless of the operating system, when removing a flash drive, it is always recommended to disconnect it from the system programmatically before physically removing the device from the computer. Is this really so important and necessary?
In this article we will try to figure out why you need to safely remove a flash drive and whether it is really necessary. Although the article is focused more on Linux, this task is common to all operating systems, so it will also be useful to MacOS and Windows users.
If I ask you to remove the flash drive from the computer while data is being written to it, then most likely you will refuse to do this. You know that now data is being written to the disk and if you turn it off, then with a 100% probability the data on the flash drive will be damaged and will definitely not be written.
However, even if your flash drive is not in an active state, accidentally removing it can lead to data corruption. This is due to caching, which is used in all operating systems. When copying, information is not immediately written to USB disk instead, to speed up the operation of the device, part of it is stored in random access memory and is recorded when the system is freer or when you want to remove the flash drive.
The system does not always transfer data directly to the disk, so if you unexpectedly pull the flash drive out of the connector, it is possible that not all data will be written correctly. The probability of such an outcome is lower than with an active flash drive, but it exists.
Why do Linux, MacOS and Windows behave differently?
Operating systems behave almost the same when working with any disk. This applies not only to flash drives, but also to hard drives built into the case. The data that needs to be written first goes into memory and remains there for some time. Also, the read data is cached in RAM, in case it is needed again.
Thanks to this, the system works faster. After all, at one point in time, only one write or read operation can be performed on a hard drive or flash drive, and perhaps this moment The system has more important things to do than write your file.
Safely removing a flash drive is even more necessary on Linux and MacOS than on Windows with default settings. Why is that? operating room Windows system does not use caching for disks that it considers removable. This is the default behavior of the system, but it can be changed for better performance. To do this, open Device Manager > Disk Devices > Disk Name > Properties > Policies:
On the other hand, Linux and Mac use caching for all disks by default, including removable ones. Windows will behave exactly the same way if you select the option Better performance . Linux gives you full control over disk management, including whether you want to cache data. To do this, just create an entry for mounting the flash drive in /etc/fstab and add the mount option sync. For example:
/dev/sdb1 /run/media/flash users,noatime,sync 0 0
If you use the sync mount option, then all data that is sent to the disk will be written immediately. But please note that the sync option does not override the safe removal of the USB device. Proper unmounting ensures that no more applications work with the flash drive and there is no unsaved data there.
If the device is not unmounted and the file is open in a program, unexpected ejection can cause corruption at the file system level. There may be unfinished operations left before the file is closed.
In addition, the sync option has a bad effect on the life of the flash drive. The kernel writes in batches to each sector as soon as it is needed. For cheap flash drives that don't redistribute servers, a modern journaled file system can be the last thing and kill the device very quickly.
For file systems FAT, you can use the flush mount option. It writes data as soon as the disk becomes inactive. This improves the situation a little.
Always use safe removal
If you remove the flash drive and do not unmount it first, it is unlikely that anything will happen to the flash drive itself; it will definitely not burn out. But if at this time something was writing data to it, then it will be lost. Therefore, it is better to make it a rule to always unmount the Linux flash drive before removing it from the computer, and this is true not only for Linux, but also for Windows.
Moreover, all this is done in a couple of mouse clicks. In Ubuntu this can be done using File Explorer. KDE has a special taskbar widget that allows you to safely remove the flash drive:
If you want to perform this action through the terminal, then everything is also a little more complicated:
sudo umount /dev/sdb1
Here sdb1 is the name of the flash drive device on your system. After this, the flash drive will be prepared for removal. In Windows, this must be done, because unlike Linux, this system can itself, without your knowledge, begin to perform any actions with a flash drive, for example, create a System Volume Information folder with metafiles.
When using the safe removal of the flash drive function, I always received a window with a message indicating that it was safe to remove the flash drive. Recently, when you click on the flash drive icon in order to safely remove it, no message is received, and the flash drive icon disappears in the window. Therefore, I don’t know whether it is possible to safely remove the flash drive or not. Tell me what settings need to be made to restore the function of safely removing a flash drive. I prefer to make the appropriate settings in the registry or using the gpedit editor. Thank you in advance..
/ Vitaly Vladimirovich 08.28.2016, 11:05
Some strange behavior of the icon: it is still visible, but does not function. I would like to know if this behavior is only with this flash drive or with all? Try checking it for viruses. There are solutions on the Internet when the tray icon is completely missing. Can I advise you USB program Safely Remove. It has similar functionality and even more.
There is also an excellent utility that clears all traces of USB device connections in the registry and after it everything starts working as it should. This is a utility USBOblivion. designed to erase traces of connecting USB drives and CD-ROMs from the registry in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Wimdows 10, both 32 and 64-bit versions. The utility has test mode work, i.e. without actually deleting data from the registry, and, just in case, creates a .reg file to undo all changes. There is also a complete auto mode work.
A situation often occurs when it is impossible to disconnect the flash drive from the computer in safe mode. When disconnected, a window appears with information that the device is still in use. You can disconnect the flash drive only after closing all programs that use your flash drive.
How can you find programs that prevent the flash drive from being safely removed? At my previous job, I often had cases where I seemed to have finished working with a flash drive, closed all the files, and when disconnected it still says that the device is still in use. I didn’t have enough nerves and I simply disconnected the flash drive from USB port. But having destroyed several flash drives in this way, I decided to think about how to figure out what exactly the flash drive was doing at the time of shutdown.
This is actually the message that appears when you want to disconnect a flash drive that is being used by some program, or a file is opened from it
The device is still in use. Quit all programs and close any windows that may be using this device, and then try again.
Fortunately, kind programmers wrote special program, with which you can figure out what kind of process or file is “holding” the flash drive and preventing it from being turned off.
This program is called Dev Eject. Its essence is to find the process that is currently occupying your flash drive; you can disable this process from the program and then safely remove the flash drive.
After installation, run the program and select your flash drive
Now click “ Eject” to safely disconnect the flash drive, if the flash drive is occupied by some program, a window like this will appear:
As you can see, this window shows the process that is currently using the flash drive. In my case it is an image viewer. I forgot to close the picture, which is on the flash drive. In order not to look for where you have this picture open, just click right click on the process and select “ Kill process”
After disabling the process, close the window and click “ Eject“, now the flash drive can be unmounted without any problems.