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Cannot eject USB mass storage for any hardware combination RRS feed

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    I originally posted in this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/703d58e6-b7d1-4525-8985-6f6e2b99b6a2
    A lot of people are getting the exact same symptoms. Dabur972 asked me to create a new thread, maybe it will get more attention.

    Also scanned for rootkits/spyware with gmer, RootkitRevealer, and clamscan; bad sectors/corruption with chkdsk and smartmontools. No abnormalities found. Also tested on laptop with Windows XP Professional x86--ejects fine.
    Suffering from the exact same problem (can't eject) on Windows 7 Professional x64. I'm fairly positive it is independent of the hardware, as it occurs on the following USB enclosure and hard drive configurations:

    IcyDock MB561S-4S
    IcyDock     MB664US-1S
    Startech SATADOCK22UE
    Hitachi HD32000 2TB
    Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1 TB
    WD WD20EADS 2TB

    System: Intel DG45FC with latest drivers

    Besides these, I have not tested other models, so I have not seen a hardware configuration that does not suffer from this problem. Furthermore, these configurations eject without problems on my other dual-boot Debian/Mac OS X 10.4 in both operating systems. Only Windows 7 exhibits the problem.

    As the OP stated, LockHunter (x64 1.0 beta 3 in my case) shows locking by the System on the following paths:
    drive:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TextLog\$TxtLogContainer00000000000000001
    drive:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TextLog\$TxtLog.bif
    drive:\$Extend\$RmMetadata\$TextLog\$TxtLogContainer00000000000000002

    Process Explorer AND Handle, both Microsoft applications show "No matching handles found." Thus I suspect it is some shadow system process running in the background (maybe Microsoft's Samba server?) that is locking the files in a way that the operating system API cannot even detect. However, the problem occurs even when I am not connected to the server from another PC.
    Thursday, January 21, 2010 7:16 AM

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    Have you tried to format your flash drives to Fat32? (Not use the quick format)

    As these files are related to your drive information, they are hidden by default. According to my test, I can find those files in my drive with the LockHunter, but I found these files can be removed, once I format it to FAT32. You can try to test.

    I hope this can help you.




    John
    Friday, January 22, 2010 10:16 AM
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    hi ,

    the reason i asked is that the topic is long gone on the other thread .


    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    topic , it looks like a metadata error , if it is an error . can you copy paste the details to this thread also ?

    John's idea of fat 32 might help , but for what do you use them ?

    the serial link Q , i meant are they all linked with each other or all seperatly to the comp ?

    give detail on your OS also , ...

    i will take a look at this again and see what can be done .

    what does dxdiag say ? have you tried a diskcheck ? both options ?

    have a nice day



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    Friday, January 22, 2010 9:46 PM
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    John Cena: these are not flash drives, but hard drives ranging from 1TB-2TB as per my first post. They are formatted NTFS (by Windows 7) and since they are full, I can't test reformatting to FAT32. If this is an NTFS metadata problem on Windows 7, switching to FAT32 doesn't make much sense, as NTFS is the proprietary Microsoft file system.

    Dabur972:

    Thanks for offering suggestions, but please re-read the first post in this thread. In the quote, I show the metadata error reported by LockHunter, my OS and other specs.

    If I understand the "serial link" part of your question correctly, the error persists when the hard drives in a single-hard drive enclosure and in multiple hard-drive enclosures. However, I'm not 100% sure that is what you meant.

    DXDiag is a video/sound trouble-shooting utility, so I don't see how it would be relevant to this case. However, I just ran it and "No problems found" for Video, Sound, or Input.

    Yes, chkdsk was run with both file system scan and deep surface scan (/r), although /r already implies file system scan
    Monday, January 25, 2010 10:33 AM
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    John Cena: these are not flash drives, but hard drives ranging from 1TB-2TB as per my first post. They are formatted NTFS (by Windows 7) and since they are full, I can't test reformatting to FAT32. If this is an NTFS metadata problem on Windows 7, switching to FAT32 doesn't make much sense, as NTFS is the proprietary Microsoft file system.

    Dabur972:

    Thanks for offering suggestions, but please re-read the first post in this thread. In the quote, I show the metadata error reported by LockHunter, my OS and other specs.

    If I understand the "serial link" part of your question correctly, the error persists when the hard drives in a single-hard drive enclosure and in multiple hard-drive enclosures. However, I'm not 100% sure that is what you meant.

    DXDiag is a video/sound trouble-shooting utility, so I don't see how it would be relevant to this case. However, I just ran it and "No problems found" for Video, Sound, or Input.

    Yes, chkdsk was run with both file system scan and deep surface scan (/r), although /r already implies file system scan

    hi ,

    okay , start , admin tools , comp management , what does that show about the state of the disks ?

    anything in the event viewer ?

    hmmm , tried a reformat ?

    have a nice day
    Scan with OneCare + 50 Windows 7even Tips + Plagued by the Privacy Center? REMOVE IT + Threat Research & Response Blog + Sysinternals Live tools + TRANSLATOR+ Photosynth + Microsoft Security + Microsoft SUPPORT + PIVOT from Live Labs + Microsoft Live Labs + Office 2010 beta + Get Windows LIVE!
    Monday, January 25, 2010 1:35 PM
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    You can also try diskpart and fsutil, with various parameters, in a command prompt.  You might be able to learn something.
    Monday, January 25, 2010 10:58 PM
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    I had an issue with some drives that required me to stop the indexer from running. Then I could eject the drive.
    Monday, January 25, 2010 11:38 PM
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    I found there is a Removel policy for the external hard driver, you can choose the "Quick Removal" option to disable the write caching on the device and in Windows, so that you can disconnet the device safely without using the safely Remove hardware notification icon.

    Go to Device manager, expand Disk Drives category and then click on your USB drive and select "Quick Removal". Now, you can plug the hard drive in and out safely.

    I hope this can help you.
     

    John
    Wednesday, January 27, 2010 5:06 AM
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    I found there is a Removel policy for the external hard driver, you can choose the "Quick Removal" option to disable the write caching on the device and in Windows, so that you can disconnet the device safely without using the safely Remove hardware notification icon.

    Go to Device manager, expand Disk Drives category and then click on your USB drive and select "Quick Removal". Now, you can plug the hard drive in and out safely.

    I hope this can help you.
     

    John

    hi ,

    indeed , check the options ( properties ) to see if a usb device is working okay or not , ... it also displays the driver version (!!)

    have a nice day
    Scan with OneCare + 50 Windows 7even Tips + Plagued by the Privacy Center? REMOVE IT + Threat Research & Response Blog + Sysinternals Live tools + TRANSLATOR+ Photosynth + Microsoft Security + Microsoft SUPPORT + PIVOT from Live Labs + Microsoft Live Labs + Office 2010 beta + Get Windows LIVE!
    Wednesday, January 27, 2010 8:48 PM
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    I've tried this in the past, and quick removal will let of course let it be removed but that's bypassing the problem altogether rather than solving it. Even without quick removal, I can always just unplug it which would be the same result when there are no processes accessing the drive (i.e. cache not being used).

    It seems ridiculous to not be able to remove a hard disk at all without enabling quick removal.. that's not what quick removal was designed for. There are big performance disadvantages to quick removal in terms of cache use, which is why it's not enabled by default. These aren't flash drives, but huge 1TB & 2TB drives with a lot of write/read use that I only disconnect once or twice a month.

    In answer to your questions, disk management and Windows command-line tools show nothing out of the ordinary. Indexing is not enabled. Reformat is not possible at the moment, but doesn't make sense anyway, considering I used Windows to format these drives and there are 8 of them in total (2 WD, 4 Samsung, 2 Hitachi), all exhibiting the same symptoms.
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 12:50 PM
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    I've tried this in the past, and quick removal will let of course let it be removed but that's bypassing the problem altogether rather than solving it. Even without quick removal, I can always just unplug it which would be the same result when there are no processes accessing the drive (i.e. cache not being used).

    It seems ridiculous to not be able to remove a hard disk at all without enabling quick removal.. that's not what quick removal was designed for. There are big performance disadvantages to quick removal in terms of cache use, which is why it's not enabled by default. These aren't flash drives, but huge 1TB & 2TB drives with a lot of write/read use that I only disconnect once or twice a month.

    In answer to your questions, disk management and Windows command-line tools show nothing out of the ordinary. Indexing is not enabled. Reformat is not possible at the moment, but doesn't make sense anyway, considering I used Windows to format these drives and there are 8 of them in total (2 WD, 4 Samsung, 2 Hitachi), all exhibiting the same symptoms.

    hi ,

    okay try a disk check on a few , see what that does ? anything in problem reports and solutions ??

    something else , when you go to properties of a disk , >>> hardware , properties , >> tab policies , what is flagged there ?

    to bad you are not around the corner , then i could check them myself

    have a nice sunday

    Scan with OneCare + 50 Windows 7even Tips + Plagued by the Privacy Center? REMOVE IT + Threat Research & Response Blog + Sysinternals Live tools + TRANSLATOR+ Photosynth + Microsoft Security + Microsoft SUPPORT + PIVOT from Live Labs + Microsoft Live Labs + Office 2010 beta + Get Windows LIVE!
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:04 PM
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    Already ran chkdsk with both settings (as stated in several posts).

    Under policies, it's optimized with performance with write caching. However, as said, I have tried quick removal, but that is not a solution to the problem, but just an avoidance of the Windows feature in which I'm experiencing the problem.
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:27 PM
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    Already ran chkdsk with both settings (as stated in several posts).

    Under policies, it's optimized with performance with write caching. However, as said, I have tried quick removal, but that is not a solution to the problem, but just an avoidance of the Windows feature in which I'm experiencing the problem.

    hi ,

    you never know , thats why i asked the diskcheck several times , ...

    i keep thinking about that metadata , is the cache big enough ?

    do you need to unplug them on a regular basis ? i fixed some errors a while ago due to synchro software , could that be the case ?

    i will post a note for the deployment guys and see what they can find , ....

    have a nice day

    ps , make a support ticket anyway , is a down moment for them now , click the link MS support in my signature , scroll to the end of the page and get a chat with the supp staff

    thy have some tools that can check way more by the way

    have you tried sfc /scannow ??
    Scan with OneCare + 50 Windows 7even Tips + Plagued by the Privacy Center? REMOVE IT + Threat Research & Response Blog + Sysinternals Live tools + TRANSLATOR+ Photosynth + Microsoft Security + Microsoft SUPPORT + PIVOT from Live Labs + Microsoft Live Labs + Office 2010 beta + Get Windows LIVE!
    Sunday, January 31, 2010 3:41 PM
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    hi ,

    to update , i posted some posts in the other thread

    http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/703d58e6-b7d1-4525-8985-6f6e2b99b6a2/#888c4ad4-e0fa-4b44-8379-004a6cc9afd1

    have a nice day
    Scan with OneCare + 50 Windows 7even Tips + Plagued by the Privacy Center? REMOVE IT + Threat Research & Response Blog + Sysinternals Live tools + TRANSLATOR+ Photosynth + Microsoft Security + Microsoft SUPPORT + PIVOT from Live Labs + Microsoft Live Labs + Office 2010 beta + Get Windows LIVE!
    Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:56 PM
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    I'm running Vista and a WD USB for my EaseUS todo backup. Had above problem, reset Policies in the drive properties:  Double click on computer, right click on properties of usb drive, mine is "F", click on hardware tab, highlight correct drive ( mine is external USB drive) click on properties again, click on policies, click bullet to "Optimize for performance" restart PC.. Now when I click on the safely remove it works...

    @

    Thursday, July 11, 2013 4:38 AM
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    To fix this, see this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/12006-63-problem-ejecting-mass-storage-device

    If you don't have the offline option, use diskpart, but note that "select disk #" should be the disk # that shows in Disk Management:

    PS C:\> diskpart

    DISKPART> select disk 1

    Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

    DISKPART> offline disk

    DiskPart successfully offlined the selected disk.

    Now remove the disk from USB and then reconnect. If it doesn't show as online then do this:

    DISKPART> online disk


    • Edited by Travis040 Tuesday, May 26, 2015 9:07 PM
    Tuesday, May 26, 2015 9:07 PM