USB mass storage device cannot be ejected while Windows Search is running

Question

I'm using a USB 3.0 docking station to transfer important data from four hard drives removed from a couple of dead Windows XP machines to my new laptop which has been upgraded to Windows 8.1

When attempting to eject the docking station after closing File Explorer, a message appears which says "wsearch is preventing this device from being ejected. Close the application and then try again". 

Fine, except there isn't an obvious means of doing that. Up till now, I've resorted to opening the Services Management Console, double clicking Windows Search in the list and then changing the dropdown menu from "Automatic (delayed start)" to Disabled and finally clicking the Stop button.

Just clicking the Stop button without disabling WS first results in the error you see in the screenshot.

So for the benefit of any engineers reading this post, here are the steps to reproduce the issue.

1. Using a USB 3.0 docking station, insert a large capacity SATA HD with at least 180GB of data on it which hasn't yet been indexed.
2. Connect the docking station to a laptop and either copy or move about 60GB to the laptop.
3. After the task finishes and you've closed File Explorer, click the Taskbar button to eject the docking station. This is stage at which the warning message appears.

Presumably what's happening is the the OS is indexing the SATA drive and won't release it until the job completes. Disabling the services module is the only safe way to terminate that and allow the user to eject the docking station.

Answer 1

Hi,

You might try going to the Metro\UI and type "indexing options"... and click on it when search lists it.

Select "MODIFY" on the window that opens, and make sure the drive you are having issues with is excluded.

I don't know if you would need to do this for all four drives, or just the docking station.

If they are always assigned the same drive letter, maybe just once.

Answer 2

Well, that might be appropriate for a small USB drive, but I had a 500GB SATA drive plugged into a docking station and even after half an hour, I was still getting the message that wsearch was preventing the drive from being ejected.

Disabling Windows Search in the Services Management Console results in the "Safe to remove..." balloon appearing immediately when I attempt to eject the docking station.

My point here is that there should be a simple means of disabling Windows Search rather than having to jump through hoops to a disable service as the only means of achieving that goal.

Also, any novice user is immediately going to think "wsearch" must be spyware or a virus or something.

Answer 3

Hi,

What I meant to suggest is that setting the drive for quick removal might disable the indexing.

Answer 4

Hi,

Have you tried going to Disk Management, right clicking the drive...

Like I already mentioned, the culprit is Windows Search. Nothing to do with disk management.

Answer 5

Hi,

I have never encountered that specific error, but I routinely get a similar error when "Safely Removing" External drives of any type...

In my case, the culprit turned out to be Taskmanager running in a minimized state...

Closing it resolves the issue...

I also get this error when a program called SpeedFan is running....

Neither of these issues were present in Win 7 Pro x64.

I have found that I can still remove the drive after clicking OK on the error message...

If you look closely, you should see the hard drive activity light flash a few times as it clears it's cache...

This is obviously not the ideal thing to do, but I haven't lost any data...

Have you tried going to Disk Management, right clicking the drive...

Properties...Hardware... select the drive again...Properties again... Policies tab...select "Quick Removal"

This didn't solve my problem, but might be beneficial for you...