Windows 11 Not Ejecting External Hard Drive Upon The First Attempt

Not sure if you saw my last response, but after additional searching & careful tinkering I found that going to System > Storage > Disks & Volumes & switching the external hard drive to offline, made the drive eject on the first attempt. That's apparently an extra step I will have to do every time, but this may be what I will have to do. I will include all of your suggestions in subsequent info searches if this starts happening again. Some of them didn't get tested before I seemed to have resolved this, because some of them were bigger & more extensive last resort type options, but evidently, I may not need to try them. I will update a third time to see if this is confirmed to be resolved.

If this becomes too inefficient, I will try the hard drive properties option.

Thanks

I revisited the external hard drive properties & adjusting the settings didn't work, & after discovering that there is an ongoing Windows bug that causes this problem, I will have to take the drive on & off line everytime I need to eject the external hard drive & eject it safely. Evidently, the other options that were suggested will not work, because they didn't work for others who had this problem, but it was not caused by other culprits, like hardware failures, backgroud processes, or software incompatibility. While its reassuring that its not the external hard drives themselves & that Windows can still interact with them, files can be copied over & saved, & that the only trouble is with safely ejecting them, I hope Windows finally addresses & fixes this. It may be a fairly minor inconvenience, but it seems inexcusable that this has been going on for a year or longer, according to other users. Ensuring the operating system is able to properly connect & adequately interact with other devices is an integral function of computers.

Hi Alyssa, 

Welcome to Microsoft Community. I understand how frustrating it must be to deal with Windows 11 not ejecting your Toshiba external hard drives on the first attempt, especially on your Surface Pro 11th Edition. The "Windows cannot stop your volume device" message typically means something is still accessing the drive, preventing a clean ejection. it’s possible an application or process is quietly using the drive. Close all open programs—File Explorer, backup software, or anything that might access files—before ejecting. Even if you don’t think they’re using the drive, some apps (like antivirus or File Explorer itself) might be scanning or indexing it. After closing everything, try ejecting again.

Open Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc), go to the "Processes" tab, and look for anything suspicious—like a backup utility or file sync service (e.g., OneDrive)—that might be active. You don’t need to kill processes blindly; just note if something obvious is running, close it if you can, and try ejecting again.

Since you’re using Toshiba Portable Storage drives with a Surface Pro 11th Edition, USB drivers could be a factor: Drivers for hardware only work if they're designed for a Windows 11 Arm-based PC. For more info, check with the hardware manufacturer or the organization that developed the driver.

If a driver doesn't work, the app or hardware that relies on it doesn't work either (at least not fully). Peripherals and devices only work if the drivers they depend on are built into Windows 11, or if the hardware developer has released Arm64 drivers for the

device.

If the drivers aren’t ARM-compatible, you might see partial functionality—like the drive working for read/write but failing to eject cleanly—because the "Safely Remove Hardware" process relies on proper driver communication to release the device.

I hope this helps. If there is anything not clear, please do not hesitate to let me know. Your SincerelyHahn. W - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hi Alyssa,  

It’s great that you’ve narrowed it down a bit! It sounds like closing File Explorer and Chrome helped.

A "clean boot" starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs, so that you can determine whether a background program is interfering with your game or program. How to perform a clean boot in Windows - Microsoft Support

Absolutely, feel free to report back here with updates after your second try! Your SincerelyHahn. W - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

I think it may involve the first potential cause, you described. I made sure both Chrome & File Explorer were closed. Previously, I would close File Explorer, which seemed to work, because it seemed to eject earlier when I did that, which I had forgotten to mention. Including Chrome seemed to work, but so far, I have only tried it once. One of them still didn't eject immediately, but it was after the second attempt, rather than than after several attempts. I apparently have not yet tried killing or temporarily disabling processes in order to see if that has any influence. Should I report back here with any updates after I have tried it a second time?

Thanks