windows 7 - Not able to safely remove external disk after having mounted and unmounted a VHD on it

07
2014-07
  • Agnel Kurian

    I am using Windows 7 SP 1. I have an external hard disk (Seagate 500GB) which I am able to use without problems most of the time. I am able to plug it in, use it and then safely unmount it via the "Eject USB Mass Storage Device" option in the taskbar tray.

    However, if I attach a VHD file located on this disk using "Disk Management", then detach the VHD and finally try to safely disconnect the disk via the system tray, I get an error which says: "Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device: Windows can't stop your 'Generic volume' device because a program is still using it. Close any programs that might be using the device, and then try again later."

    How do I avoid this problem? Which process could still be accessing the device (even after I have closed the "Disk Management" application) ?

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    Linux doesn't detect external USB hard drive
  • tony_sid

    In Ubuntu 10.04 all I had to do was turn on my external hard drive and it would automatically be detected and mounted. I just switched over to Ultimate Edition, which I think is Ubuntu 10.04 with a lot of stuff added on to it. The funny thing is when I turn on the external hard drive it doesn't get mounted, and I don't think it's even being detected. I looked in gparted and it doesn't show up there. If I boot into Ubuntu 10.04 and turn on the hard drive it still gets detected and mounted, so there's nothing wrong with it. Ultimate Edition can detect other things connected to USB, like my iPod, so I'm wondering why it can't detect my hard drive.

    Edit: When I do tail -f /var/log/messages and if the drive gets detected, this is what it says:

    [  230.520892] usb 1-2.4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 6
[  230.639400] usb 1-2.4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[  230.639717] scsi9 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[  235.631550] scsi 9:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Maxtor   OneTouch         0122 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[  235.632631] sd 9:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[  235.633120] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] 1465149168 512-byte logical blocks: (750 GB/698 GiB)
[  235.634625] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[  235.636443]  sdc: sdc1
[  235.651885] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk

    When the drive is not detected then it doesn't say anything.


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  • Aaron Digulla

    Run tail -f /var/log/messages while you connect the driver. That may give you an idea what is going on. Maybe the usb-storage driver is missing or some driver can't be loaded or there is a bug.

  • Kellemora

    I'm running 10.04 and have learned NOT to UNMOUNT the portable hard drive as doing so prevents it from being recognized unless you reboot the computer.

    However, if the portable or external USB hard drive is in NTSF format, unless you do unmount it, it cannot be read by a Doze computer. So it's still best to unmount it as you should if you use it on other machines.

    After a cold reboot, Plug In your USB Hard Drive and it should be recognized. If you unmount it and turn it off or remove it, plugging it back in and turning it on will not let it be remounted for you. Using a different port will sometimes work, but not always.

    This is another bug and/or inconvenience added to version 10.04.... 8.04 was still the best yet, many great user features not present in 10.04....

    TTUL Gary