Problem Ejecting External Disk - This device is currently in use

F***ed up that Windows / MS hasn't fixed this yet. Shutting down the computer seems inconvenient at best. I don't really want to add additional software to figure out what the problem is.

F***ed up that Windows / MS hasn't fixed this yet. Shutting down the computer seems inconvenient at best. I don't really want to add additional software to figure out what the problem is.

Yeah, it sucks big time this is STILL going on after all this time.

It happens almost all the time when I'm ejecting USB drives. Neither Process Explorer or Handle ever show anything actually attached to that drive. It's something I've battled over all versions of Windows. Here we are 2024 and it still happens a lot of the time.

Is this so hard to get right? Other operating system never have this much issues

Hi,

Within the Event Viewer I found out it's process id 4 (SYSTEM) that stops the safe removal / ejection of my G-DRIVE.

The application System with process id 4 stopped the removal or ejection for the device USB[etc etc]

Process command line:

List of affected devices:

STORAGE\Volume[etc etc]

In the above text I replaced the identifiers of the disk with [etc etc] because I don't want to share personal id's here.

For now I will stop searching for a solution and believe it's a bug in Windows 11 around cache flushing or a compatibility issue between Windows 11 and my Sandisk Professional G-DRIVE.

Work around: every time I want to remove the G-DRIVE external disk, I will have to shut down my PC completely before removing it.

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions.

SJW

I found some info that might be helpful for anyone experiencing this problem. If the external device's (in my case an external ssd) removal policy is configured for quick removal, which for me says it's the default, then you don't have to use the Safely Remove Hardware button. It's configured such that unplugging the device without clicking that button will not corrupt data (unless you pulled it out during a file transfer I would assume). You can check the policy in the Disk Device Properties > Policies tab. Right click drive in explorer > Click Properties > Hardware Tab > Select problem drive in "All disk drives" list and click Properties > Click "Change Settings" > Policies tab.

I'm guessing this is more or less a UI bug on Microsoft's part. Since it doesn't need to be ejected, it's probably returning/utilizing invalid or malformed/unhandled data to the Safely Remove Hardware command/process and it's just generically returning an error message about it since it doesn't know how to handle it. Something like that. If it's set to Quick Removal, you should be able to just unplug it when you're not using it.

Hi Igor,

Thanks again. I wasn't able to run Handle from the CMD prompt. When I clicked the .exe a CMD screen came by but I couldn't read the lines that quickly.

Therefore I used the search feature of Process Explorer with my [disk] in the search field. I presumed it does the same because it includes Handle.

Results:

• When Explorer is running, it finds two hits;
• After closing Explorer, it finds zero hits, so I guess no handles on my disk (?);
• However, when I try to safely remove the USB disk, Windows 11 still won't allow me ("This device is currently in use").

I believe it's a bug in Windows 11 around 'cache writing policy'. In Windows 10 I don't have the issue with the same external disk.

Thanks for your help!

SJW