Why There Is Not Enough Free Space on the Drive This may seem confusing, but if you try copying more other files to this external hard drive, you may find something important: you can copy the smaller files to this external drive just fine.
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Question: How do I safely remove USB hardware drives, when it says it's still in use?! I have an external hard drive, a digital camera, an eMatic ebookreader, a few flash drives, and MicroSD chip adapters all hooked up to my Windows system via a USB connection. Each warns me not to unplug without using the shutdown icon on the taskbar. Sometimes I get a message, cannot shutdown because it is still in use. No, it isn't!
Nothing is being transferred to or from it. Nothing is being read from it. I've opened the Task Manager and there are no programs running that are using the external devices. I know the warning is real to not unplug the device while it's in use-as I have some devices that my computer can no longer recognize after unplugging them without the using the proper 'Safely remove hardware' procedure. I have a couple of MicroSD adapters and one 16GB flash drive that had to be thrown away because of this. My question is: why won't it shut down, what's the cause of it being accessed when I know it is not being used, and how do I safely remove hardware or force it to shut down when the computer says the device is busy. All I want to do is to remove my external devices safely!
-Submitted by: Roderick D. Here are some member answers to get you started, but please read all the advice and suggestions that our members have contributed to this question. MESSAGE OF USB'S STILL IN USE -Submitted by: GEO2003 Restart not Recommended as the Best Option -Submitted by: High Desert Charlie Stop 'caching' in on your usb devices.Submitted by: RobertWFrei Buffering.Submitted by: darrenforster99 Depends on the file system -Submitted by: Alain Martel1 Thanks to all who contributed! If you have any additional advice or information on this subject matter, please submit it.
We are all ears, thanks! All the mass storage devices that are on your computer are controlled and buffered by the OS. Buffered access provides faster access, so that is the typical operation mode for mass storage. There are applications for mass storage devices where the devices are accessed unbuffered, but if it has a file system on it and you want decent speed, buffering by the OS is needed. Even if no user process or application is accessing the device, the OS can be carrying on asynchronous buffering operations (read-ahead, writing out large buffered blocks that need to be written because they are 'dirty', etc.).
So what you are doing is requesting that the OS sync down the device and not access it any more, like it would do for a shut down. If the OS is not accessing the device, and doesn't need to, then the 'safe to disconnect' message will appear, and everything is fine. However, if the OS is doing something with the device, then you will not get this message, and yes, if you disconnect it despite that, you are very likely to have the data on the device be damaged, and to not be able to use it after that. Your 500Gb drive is probably formated using the FAT32 file system. Your 2Tb just can't use that file system and must use the NTFS file system. When using FAT12 (floppy), FAT16 (small hard drive) or FAT32 (medium to large hard drive), there are no area in use unless you are actively accessing a file. When using the NTFS file system, there are ALWAYS two (2) areas that are constantly 'in use': The Master File Table and the transactional journal.
Now, mainly because of those, the NTFS file system is very robust and forgiving. You can safely disconnect your 2Tb drive as long as there is no user file been accessed, it will be similar to a power failure. And, even if you do deliberatly disconnect as a file is writen, the only damage may affect the file been writen, you won't have any lost cluster, lost file or other errors, just an incomplete file that IS tagged as such. Tnx for a tip to use 'usbsafelyremove' software. I downloaded trial verion and after installed it detected my 'problem' was running AvastSVC.exe that was still using my external USB device. So I force-stopped Avast Services (in Running processes menu) for a moment and with USB safely remove was able to safely disconnect my usb. Neighter shutting down my PC nor logging out of my PC account helped me with safe removal of USB.
So I recommend trying this procedure. Don´t forget to turn on your antivirus after that. Hope it helps! I have this same problem sometimes. I have several USB hard drives & flash drives.
Whenever I have this problem, I simply choose to restart my PC. As soon as it all goes dark, just before the restart happens, I can & do safely remove whichever HD or Flash Drive that's hanging up.
I got tired of tryig to find what was going on, & restarting the PC is the best solution for me. It is annoyng I know, but it works quite well for me, & takes just a couple of min.
I only have this problem at times. It does not matter which one does it, I can use it just a few min later with no problem. Sometimes the program that was accessing the USB device needs to be closed. This can be done by right clicking the Taskbar and selecting the Task Manager and exiting the program via the Processes tab. ' I have a couple of MicroSD adapters and one 16GB flash drive that had to be thrown away because of this.' You may at anytime remove a USB powered deviced without using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' menu.
However, to resume using it again on the same computer, you should first power down your computer and then unplug it for about 1 minute. This resets the capacitors on the motherboard.
Hi Roderick, Sometimes Windows is still trying to Index what ever new you place / removed on the USB's or just updating the Index File. Other possibilities are the release of the letter assigned to each USB so you get the message, if you were to open Windows Explorer and point to the Internal Drive such as C and wait about 15 seconds Prior to using the Taskbar Icon to Eject any USB, that would do it, but if not: Just Log Off your Profile, un-plug the USB's Connected and Log back on. It was suggested that you re-boot the pc and that is an idea as well. I found that is just faster to click on the icon on the Taskbar and if i get one of those messages which is not often with Win 7, then i just log off and Windows finishes writting / or the task in process at which point I remove the USB. I have never had a problem loosing information or not being able to read that USB after using this process.
As far as having thrown them away, I think that was a bit too quick a reaction on your part - If you try re-formatting them and that did not helped, it could have been because the actual memory chips used on USB's and MicroSD Storage Cards could have worn out or corrupted. Next time try re-formatting them first, if it does not work on your PC/Laptop try a friend's - The memory on Small Storage devices is delicate and if you Read / Write a lot from them - they will eventually fail. Hope that helps. If anything on the usb device is still being used by a program on your PC (or Mac) this will happen, even if you don't notice any activity on the drive. Sometimes it can be as innocent as a photo that is still open in Preview (on a Mac) even if it is parked in your dock or hidden under other windows. The safest thing to do is restart. Sometimes something you aren't aware of will be running and you won't be able to quit or restart.
You can try using the Force Quit method (Mac), and if all else fails. Bail out by holding down the power button. There are 2ways to do this safely, open 'my computer' identify the USB drive right click eject the second is probably the best preferred way, in the system tray click the. One of three things is likely preventing you from removing the drive: First, is if you have a windows explorer windows open that is pointed to that drive and have its contents on the screen. Second, your antivirus is in the process of scanning the device or has left a file/folder locked as active. Close the windows explorer (not internet explorer) windows and wait a minute or so and try again. Third: you have a program installed like a photo transfer program that is locking up the drive.
I have one that installs with my Olympus camera and one with my Lumix camera. Pain in the rear they are, really. Close the programs like that that are sitting in your taskbar.
Worst case scenario, close all windows and wait a minute and see. Last resort: If you shutdown Windows, it should force whatever process is using it to complete and the system should shut down normally. If not, there is a remote chance that you have a virus that is cataloging the files on the thumbdrive so it can phone home to its master for identity theft reasons. Scan your computer with antivirus. Also, regarding your thrown away thumbdrives: While unplugging a drive before using 'remove safely' can corrupt the data, the thumbdrive itself is often just fine. You just can't access that data anymore.
You can re-insert the thumbdrive and reformat it like any other disk by opening My Computer, right-clicking on that drive, and selecting 'Format'. Be warned, it will definitely toast any data you have on that drive, and if you accidentally do this to a hard drive, well, things won't be pretty. You may want to try a long format (uncheck quick format) even though it will minutely decrease the lifespan of the drive (most thumbdrives have a finite lifespan based on the number of writes to each cell).
The reasoning for this is that if a particular cell of the memory on the thumbdrive was damaged by unplugging it, the long format should catch it. If you can right-click it because the drive doesn't show up in 'My computer' anymore, you may have to try re-partitioning it through the Computer Management-Disk Management control panel in Administrative Tools (or right click 'computer' and select manage).
If you are uncomfortable doing this, have a geek friend try. If the drive still is not accessible, then recycle it.
It's actually illegal in many states to throw electronics away now as there is a fair amount of lead in the solder of electronics. Hi Roderick, You shouldn't be having this problem with your USB devices. Most flash drives are automatically set to run without a read/write cache for 'Quick Removal'. At least according to Windows, you're supposed to be able to remove your USB device without using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' feature unless you have changed the properties for your USB drive to turn on Read/Write caching for better performance. If you have, then you need to use the Safely Remove Hardware feature. You can quickly view the properties of your devices in a number of ways depending on what OS you're using. This command can be created on your desktop to quickly assess the properties of your devices, and safely remove them if you desire: Right-click the desktop and choose New Shortcut.
Use this for a target:%windir% System32 rundll32.exe shell32.dll,ControlRunDLL hotplug.dll where%windir% is the drive where your system is located (Usually C: windows) so the command would look like this on most systems: C: windows System32 rundll32.exe shell32.dll,ControlRunDLL hotplug.dll In Windows 7, clicking on Start Devices and Printers will usually bring up any USB devices in use and allow you to eject them. I think the obvious is obvious here. If you have any open documents that originated from your USB drive you need to save them. If you ran any commands from your USB drive that are still running, you should shut them down. You can use the EJECT command from the shortcut I provided above.
If all of that still doesn't work and you want to be absolutely certain that you don't corrupt the FAT on your USB, you should do a SHUT DOWN. Then remove the device before restarting. Doing a Restart could still damage your USB in rare circumstances. (Don't flood me with answers about how it works for you, I said RARE CIRCUMSTANCES). I hope this helps.
The other day something weird happened to my USB drive. Here’s my story I have a capacious 64GB USB Drive. It’s like sitting first class on Delta Airlines, sitting in the handicap bathroom stall at Old Navy or sitting in the front seat of a Hyundai Equus. I purchased this thing when 64GB USB drives began flaunting their commodious features – so it wasn’t cheap. And I’m proud of the space.So, I wanted to install Mac OS X Yosemite in VirtualBox so I installed IESD, converted the.app to a.dmg and ran HDITUTIL to spruce up final product. Once I finished my digital hocuspocus, I plugged my thumb drive into my Mac Mini but when I dropped the 32GB file onto the drive, my Mac bitched about there not being enough space on the destination drive.
I had to do a double take. I knew my USB drive wasn’t damaged because it was just working a moment ago. Low and behold, when I pressed Command + i and viewed the info, my Mac was only detecting 32GB of space. In fact, it erroneously thought the maximum capacity of my 64GB drive was only 32GB. Let’s just say I was bit peeved. Flustered, I yanked the drive and roughly attached it to my PC. Perhaps it’s a Mac thing right?
But Windows was showing the same problem. I thought about reformating the volume; however, 32GB was the largest capacity visible from the drop down list. I didn’t even have an option to format at 64GB! What the heck are you supposed to do when the Windows format tool won’t let you format your removable media at full capacity? Diskpart will save your butt man This is seriously a task for. It’s a built in Windows tool that lets you partition your disk. In other words, it lets you divide up a physical disk into logical volumes.
You can also delete partitions. It’s this last part, deleting partition, which saved my butt. Here’s how this works: Bust open a command prompt and type diskpart.
You can get here fast by pressing the Windows Logo key on your keyboard and the letters “xa”. The first thing we need to do is list all the disks that Windows knows about. Type: list disk From the graphic above, you can see diskpart knows my disk is 59GB. So that’s a good sign. It’s not showing up in the GUI though so we need to fix that.
Let’s select the disk number that represents our USB drive (just substitute the disk number with the respective one showing up on your screen): select disk 1 and then select the partition. We want to select Partition 1 because it’s the only partition on the USB drive and we need to nuke it.
Select partition 1. Now we need to delete this partition. Now this part is crucial. Make sure you are 100% certain you selected the right disk because there is no way to back out of this process. Once we type delete partition all the data will instantly be obliterated. There’s no confirmation or warning box.
Scary but true. Delete partition Now we’ll create a shiny new full-size partition. Create partition primary Great, now type: list partition We want to make sure that everything looks good.
You should see Partition 1 with the correct size under the Size column. Now type exit to get out of diskpart because our dirty work is done! If you right click your USB drive in File Explorer and choose format you’ll see the full capacity listed. What a welcome change. And that my friends is how to make your USB drive show full capacity again. Below are steps I received from manufacturer in case this helps anyone – very similar to steps in this original article above I assume.
My problem was a 64GB USB flash drive was showing just 32GB, and this was after I created a Recovery Drive on Windows 10 on the USB drive and later changed my mind and wanted to use the drive for something else. Just be very careful you follow the commands on the correct disk number as mentioned in the original article!!! I followed these commands below very carefully and it fixed my problem. “Usually this happens when you a backup program or image recovery maker tries to use the flash drive. Try the steps below and see if your problem is corrected. Please ensure your USB drive is plugged in while you do this process. Search for command prompt (CMD) 2.
Right click on Command Prompt(cmd.exe) & Click on Run as Administrator 3. Type diskpart 4. Type list disk (this will list the drives on the computer, be sure to notice which disk number the Flash drive is and make sure the space is correct, if it does not list the full space stop her or if you are not sure stop here) 5. Type select disk X (replace X with the number that your computer assigned to your USB drive) 6.
Type clean (if there is an error stop here) 7. Type create partition primary 8. Type format fs=exfat quick 9. Type active 10. Type assign 11. Type exit Now verify that your Product is working or not and that the space is correct.”.