One of the things that is immediately taught, rightly, to those who buy a USB stick is that, when you want to disconnect it from your computer, you must first deactivate it.
The reason for this instruction is that, if on the pc where the stick is attached, files, programs or processes that originate from the pen drive are running, detaching it suddenly risks ruining the data medium.
If, however, you are 100% certain that everything has been closed and no pen file is active, then, theoretically but at your own risk, it could be detached directly, without the usual procedure of deactivation or safe removal of the hardware.
As usual, however, as with any operation that is done on the computer, especially with Windows, a problem arises and, in this case, the error message " Cannot deactivate the" Generic Volume "device now appears . Try again later ".
This error message means that on Windows a file inside the stick is open or a process or application generated by some program started from the USB stick is active and therefore it cannot be detached before the window or the file that the file in use, is terminated.
In general, a normal user can immediately recognize that, for example, there is an open photo stored on the external USB media or if you have run a portable program but, in other cases, even if you close all Windows windows and all programs, the error message keeps coming because some process has remained active.
A way forward for those who are a little more experienced is to recognize by eye which file on the stick is preventing removal and use the Unlocker program that terminates all active processes that use that file.
For everyone instead, experts or not, on their own PC or on others', I recommend copying a small tool on your USB stick which facilitates the removal from the computer of the same, inexorably closing all processes, windows and active programs, of course only those that use files inside the USB media.
1) Microsoft has released a Fixit for USB device removal issues .
The Fixit can be downloaded from this page and just simply run it and then choose which USB device or pen to remove.
2) Eject USB is therefore not a normal utility to eject a connected USB disk, because it does much more than the default Windows utility.
EjectUSB closes all running programs of a particular drive or folder and then attempts to remove external hardware .
The additional features compared to the normal Windows tool concern the elimination of the cache of files in memory on the computer, the closure of each folder and the Windows Explorer, the elimination of any registry entries and references to recent documents of the specified drive .
To make the program work properly, after downloading it, extract it to a folder with 4 files inside and copy it inside the USB stick.
In this way, the portable tool will be activated on any PC, without any installation and without touching any file on the computer.
Before removing the stick then, just press on Eject USB, notice that the USB window disappears and wait for the message " Now you can remove the device from the system without problems ".
If it doesn't work, you can try a second time (it has rarely happened to me).
So, the difference between ejecting the USB drive using this tool and the built-in "Safely Remove Hardware" in Windows is that EjectUSB automatically closes all running programs started by the USB drive.
In this way it is very unlikely that the error that the device cannot be stopped comes out.
Seeing the 4 files inside the folder, there is one called settings.bat where you can access the configuration of the EjectUSB tool and where you can see how it is also able to perform cleaning functions, remove the Subst items and much more that Safe Hardware Removal is unable to do.
Finally, we must specify that Eject USb works by closing all programs on the folder path where it is located.
Specifically, if it is copied into C: /, it closes all Windows programs and windows, if it is under another partition on the disk, it closes everything that has been done from there and so on.
Practically, it can be useful to terminate all programs in one go, without obviously doing any damage, if a USB stick can be removed, it is obvious that on the C disk there will be no similar effects.
3) A second program to eject USB devices that seem blocked because they are in use is Dev Eject, free of charge and designed for easy management of removable media connected to the computer.
The most useful feature is that it allows you to see all the processes that are using a USB drive and thus prevent its security from being removed.
When you start Dev ejection, all the devices connected to the computer via USB are displayed so just select the device that Windows indicates as impossible to disable and that does not allow you to remove and click on the 'Locks' button.
This will show a list of the processes currently in use by that USB drive which, therefore, can be terminated to then eject the disk and remove the USB stick.
4) USBDeview is another program, described in another post, that does the same plus other things, including uninstalling the media and drivers and data transfer speed tests.
The reason for this instruction is that, if on the pc where the stick is attached, files, programs or processes that originate from the pen drive are running, detaching it suddenly risks ruining the data medium.
If, however, you are 100% certain that everything has been closed and no pen file is active, then, theoretically but at your own risk, it could be detached directly, without the usual procedure of deactivation or safe removal of the hardware.
As usual, however, as with any operation that is done on the computer, especially with Windows, a problem arises and, in this case, the error message " Cannot deactivate the" Generic Volume "device now appears . Try again later ".
This error message means that on Windows a file inside the stick is open or a process or application generated by some program started from the USB stick is active and therefore it cannot be detached before the window or the file that the file in use, is terminated.
In general, a normal user can immediately recognize that, for example, there is an open photo stored on the external USB media or if you have run a portable program but, in other cases, even if you close all Windows windows and all programs, the error message keeps coming because some process has remained active.
A way forward for those who are a little more experienced is to recognize by eye which file on the stick is preventing removal and use the Unlocker program that terminates all active processes that use that file.
For everyone instead, experts or not, on their own PC or on others', I recommend copying a small tool on your USB stick which facilitates the removal from the computer of the same, inexorably closing all processes, windows and active programs, of course only those that use files inside the USB media.
1) Microsoft has released a Fixit for USB device removal issues .
The Fixit can be downloaded from this page and just simply run it and then choose which USB device or pen to remove.
2) Eject USB is therefore not a normal utility to eject a connected USB disk, because it does much more than the default Windows utility.
EjectUSB closes all running programs of a particular drive or folder and then attempts to remove external hardware .
The additional features compared to the normal Windows tool concern the elimination of the cache of files in memory on the computer, the closure of each folder and the Windows Explorer, the elimination of any registry entries and references to recent documents of the specified drive .
To make the program work properly, after downloading it, extract it to a folder with 4 files inside and copy it inside the USB stick.
In this way, the portable tool will be activated on any PC, without any installation and without touching any file on the computer.
Before removing the stick then, just press on Eject USB, notice that the USB window disappears and wait for the message " Now you can remove the device from the system without problems ". If it doesn't work, you can try a second time (it has rarely happened to me).
So, the difference between ejecting the USB drive using this tool and the built-in "Safely Remove Hardware" in Windows is that EjectUSB automatically closes all running programs started by the USB drive.
In this way it is very unlikely that the error that the device cannot be stopped comes out.
Seeing the 4 files inside the folder, there is one called settings.bat where you can access the configuration of the EjectUSB tool and where you can see how it is also able to perform cleaning functions, remove the Subst items and much more that Safe Hardware Removal is unable to do.
Finally, we must specify that Eject USb works by closing all programs on the folder path where it is located.
Specifically, if it is copied into C: /, it closes all Windows programs and windows, if it is under another partition on the disk, it closes everything that has been done from there and so on.
Practically, it can be useful to terminate all programs in one go, without obviously doing any damage, if a USB stick can be removed, it is obvious that on the C disk there will be no similar effects.
3) A second program to eject USB devices that seem blocked because they are in use is Dev Eject, free of charge and designed for easy management of removable media connected to the computer.
The most useful feature is that it allows you to see all the processes that are using a USB drive and thus prevent its security from being removed.
When you start Dev ejection, all the devices connected to the computer via USB are displayed so just select the device that Windows indicates as impossible to disable and that does not allow you to remove and click on the 'Locks' button.
This will show a list of the processes currently in use by that USB drive which, therefore, can be terminated to then eject the disk and remove the USB stick.
4) USBDeview is another program, described in another post, that does the same plus other things, including uninstalling the media and drivers and data transfer speed tests.
