How to safely remove flash drives? Safely removing a USB device in OS Windows
Do you often think about the proper use of a flash drive? Indeed, in addition to such rules as “do not drop”, “protect from moisture and mechanical damage”, there is one more important rule. It sounds like this: you need to safely remove the drive from the computer connector.
There are users who consider it unnecessary to manipulate the mouse to safely remove a flash device. But if you remove removable media from your computer incorrectly, you can not only lose all your data, but also break it.
In order to properly remove a USB drive from your computer, you can use several methods.
Method 1: USB Safely Remove
This method is suitable for those users who constantly work with flash drives.
With this program you can quickly, conveniently and safely remove such devices.
Method 2: Through “This PC”
Method 3: Through the notification area
This method involves the following actions:
Your data remains intact and this is the most important thing!
Possible problems
We mentioned above that even with such a seemingly simple procedure, some problems may arise. People on forums quite often write about a variety of problems. Here are just a few of them and ways to solve them:
If you do not adhere to these simple rules of operation, then there comes a time when the next time you open a flash drive, files and folders on it disappear. This happens especially often with removable storage media with the NTFS file system. The fact is that the operating system creates a special place for such disks to store copied files. Therefore, information does not get to the drive immediately. And if this device is removed incorrectly, there is a possibility of failure.
Therefore, if you do not want to lose your data, then do not forget to safely remove your USB drive. An extra couple of seconds to properly close the work with the flash drive gives you confidence in the reliability of storing information.
Most computer and laptop users know that a USB drive must not only be pulled out of the port to end its use in the system, but also a special so-called safe removal procedure must be launched. If a flash drive is removed without safe removal, the consequences can be catastrophic (data loss, file system errors, and even failure of the device itself). Let's consider several simple methods that allow you to carry out such a procedure, as well as restore such a Windows tool if for some reason it disappeared or became inaccessible.
Safely removing a flash drive: why is this necessary?
When removing a USB drive from the corresponding slot on a computer terminal, it is important to understand one thing. Safely removing a USB flash drive in Windos 10 or any other system is akin to the standard procedure for shutting down the computer itself.
In this case, all processes associated with the device are terminated and power is cut off. In this way, the drive can be protected from many problems. An analogue could be turning off a running computer from the network. Many people have noticed that after this the system recovery begins. It’s the same here, but you’ll have to restore functionality manually, which can be much more complicated than automated processes in Windows.
Basic Methods for Safely Removing USB Devices
So, you can safely remove a flash drive using several of the simplest methods that are provided in Windows systems.
The easiest way is to left-click on the USB icon in the system tray and select the corresponding line. If the icon is not displayed for some reason, you need to click on the up arrow to show hidden icons.
The second method that allows you to safely remove a flash drive is to use “Explorer” or double-click on the computer icon where the USB device is selected, and right-click to select the extraction option in the menu. Most people have no questions about this.
Safely removing a flash drive: USB Safely Remove program
In some cases, if someone does not like the standard method, you can use a small program called USB Safely Remove (this can be useful in cases where the system reports that access to the device cannot be terminated, or the device icon is missing in the tray) .
After installation, the program creates its own tray icon in the form of clicking on which, you can see all the USB devices currently connected to the computer system. There is also a section for hidden devices (USB camera, external network cards, disks, etc.). Just select your drive and indicate how to safely remove the flash drive.
Terminating processes using the drive
Sometimes, however, the system produces an error. In this case, you should close all files open from the device and applications that are currently using the drive, go to the “Task Manager” and forcefully terminate all USB-related processes.
In this case, you should first use displaying all user processes, then hiding Microsoft services. After this, the extraction can be repeated.
What should I do if I no longer have access to Safe Retrieval?
Now let's see what to do if it is no longer possible to safely remove the flash drive both from the system tray and from the device properties in the computer or Explorer section.
In the simplest case, you need to open the properties of the drive in any of the above sections or in the corresponding manager and go to the hardware tab. In the window, you need to select your device and click on the properties button located below. Next, click the change properties button and go to the policy tab, where you can see a hyperlink to safe extraction. Click on it, and the flash drive can be removed. At the same time, by the way, the operation of the drive will also speed up.
Alternative technique for restoring safe extraction
There is another way that allows you to restore the original settings so that you can then safely remove the flash drive.
This option is somewhat more complicated, but it provides an almost one hundred percent guarantee of restoring access to the procedure. To do this, use the “Run” console call with administrator rights.
It needs to include the following:
- RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll (necessarily exactly as specified in the original command above).
After executing the command, a new dialog box will appear in which you must first select the device you are looking for, and then click the “Stop” button at the bottom.
Instead of a total
In principle, these are the main methods that allow you to safely remove any USB device from the corresponding port, as well as eliminate some possible problems associated with the inability to perform such a procedure due to lack of access. In the simplest case, you can simply remove the device from the port and reinsert it. Perhaps the system will see it.
However, such methods are only suitable for standard situations and are the simplest for users. If the drive initially has physical damage or file system failures, you will have to use completely different methods related to restoring the functionality of the drive, the information stored on it, or even re-flashing its microcontroller. But this is a separate topic.
Today, every computer user needs the ability to work with USB devices. This is a convenient way to store and transmit information. Technologies allow you to connect not only a flash drive, but also a mobile device or camera to your computer. An important element of working with USB is their correct removal. How to do this correctly on Windows 10 and why?
Why you shouldn't ignore Safely Removing Hardware.
This function is designed to disable the access of electric current to the removable device. And although many people do not consider it scary to pull out a flash drive without performing any actions, such a habit can lead to a number of negative consequences.
Firstly, such an action may lead to partial or complete loss of data located on the media, especially if this occurred during file transfer. Secondly, a short circuit may occur, resulting in the connected device being hopelessly damaged.
How to properly disconnect USB devices
Before you begin to safely remove your device, you should make sure that no applications on your computer are using data stored on the USB. This applies to the player, photo and text editor. This will reduce the risk of seeing an error message when you try to disconnect the device.
Each time a removable device is connected, a new icon appears in the lower right corner of the desktop. It will be there among a list of other active applications, the icons of which can be seen by pressing the arrow sign. Once the work is completed, you need to click on it and select the “safely disconnect the device” function. If both a phone and a flash drive are connected to the computer at the same time, then when performing the action you must specify which device is to be disconnected.
The second option is to go to the “My Computer” folder and find the name of your device in the list. Now you need to right-click on it and find the line “extract” in the list that appears.
Problem with universal volume
Sometimes, when removing a flash drive, the user may encounter the following situation: visually there are no programs connected to the device. But when asked to extract, a window appears asking you to disable all programs running on USB. What to do?
First you need to open the device manager. Go to the “my computer” folder and at the top of the window press the “control” key. A list will appear on the left in a new window, among the names of which will be the one you are looking for.
Now you need to determine which programs are using data from the USB device that needs to be disconnected, and disable them. Now you can try to safely remove the flash drive again.
Let's summarize: safe removal of USB is necessary not only for the safety of data, but to ensure the safety of both devices from short circuits. Windows developers have made this process as simple and straightforward as possible. You can remove a removable device either using the icon on the desktop or in the “my computer” folder. And if an error occurs during extraction, it can be resolved through the device manager.
Hello, today I will talk about what to do if you have lost the Safely Remove Hardware icon using Windows 7 as an example. First, check to see if the Safely Remove Hardware icon is not on the taskbar itself. To do this, click on the tray tab and if the safe eject icon is there, simply drag it with the left mouse button onto the taskbar itself.
Go to the “Processes” tab, find explorer.exe there, right-click on it and select “End” or “End process” (it’s different in different versions of Windows).
This method is suitable when, for example, you installed a program to recover flash media, but after removing this program, the safe removal icon may sometimes disappear.
Missing shortcuts on your desktop? Everything is correct, no need to worry, this is how it should be! Please note that the task manager remains open (otherwise, just launch it again using one of the keyboard button combinations described above). Go to the "File" menu - "New task (Run)...". Enter explorer.exe in the input line that appears, press Enter and rejoice! Everything is back to its place, including the safe removal icon that you didn’t have until recently.
Restoring the Safe Removal Icon
Now let’s talk about what changes are made to the registry when the Safely Remove Hardware and Disks icon in Windows 7 disappears. Go to “Start” - “Run”, enter regedit and press Enter. Then open the following branches sequentially: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\SysTray. On the right we find the names that I will list below and indicate their parameters accordingly:
"Services”=dword:0000001b
“HotPlugFlags”=dword:00000002
After making changes, restart your computer. Be extremely careful when entering any data into the registry because if you change something there incorrectly, you can easily disable the system. Follow everything strictly according to the instructions described above.
For those who were unable to edit the registry, you can download the . After downloading, open the BezIzv.reg file, which is located in the archive at the link above. You will be asked if you really want to make changes to the registry; click “Yes” in all messages.
Manual method
There is also a way where you can open a window in which you have the option to turn off the device. To do this, go to “Start” - “Run”, insert the line: rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll. After entering, press Enter.
At the bottom, check the “Display device components” checkbox so you can understand what kind of device it is. Thus, you will have the line: “Universal volume - Letter.”
To turn off devices, click the Stop button. Next, select the flash drive and click OK.
Software
All the instructions described above sometimes do not help to return the missing safe removal icon, but you should not be upset, because there are programs that will help with this problem.
If all the described methods did not help you, as on one of the computers where I solved this problem, then you can safely install the USB Safely Remove program. It’s worth saying right away that this program is paid, I think the question of where to download this program will not arise, fortunately the Internet exists.
After installing it, you will have an icon in the tray that is a little similar to the one that is by default in Windows for ejecting flash media.
The program is not complicated and you will not have any difficulties with it. This is a 100 percent method, which I wanted to talk about at the very end of the article, since this is a “paid” solution. In this article, I told you what to do if the Safely Remove Hardware icon disappears, but you can also apply a logical diagram of solutions to other problems.
That's all for today. See you soon!