Does a hard drive dismount utility exist for Windows XP?

[Jeff7]

I've got a SATA drive in a removable bay. I enable the write cache, because with it disabled, I get speeds of around 1-2MB/sec, with high CPU utilization. Two problems: One, in the Drive Properties, the tab that allows the write cache to be turned off is entirely grayed out now. Two, the Safely Remove Hardware thing is utterly useless. Not once has it worked with a removable hard drive.
The drive does dismount just fine - for chkdsk /x. But right after chkdsk is finished, the Remove Hardware thing still insists that the drive is in use.

Does there exist a small freeware utility, anywhere, that will let me dismount the drive? All the Google search results I came across were from people who kept asking, "I can't format my c: because it can't dismount." Every bit of help then given was to help them format the drive.

I just want to dismount this drive so that I can easily turn it off without risking loss of data.

OS is WinXP Pro SP2.

 

[Toadster]

I think you can do mount/dismount on USB based devices - but haven't tried SATA... try the advanced properties tab for the drive

 

[Jeff7]

(Re-read the OP.)

in the Drive Properties, the tab that allows the write cache to be turned off is entirely grayed out now.

 

[corkyg]

That is often the case when the SATA drive is connected to an INTERNAL SATA port. It can be corrected with a PCI card that has a legitimate eSATA port. Then an eSATA external will not be grayed out.

 

[Jeff7]

The possibly odd part is, the tab wasn't grayed out until I enabled the write cache, and some times when the system boots up, it isn't grayed out.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

actualy for most drives that are designed to be removed, write caching is disabled. This is the case with external usb drives unless you specifically turn it on. This is to help prevent data loss should the drive get pulled. In your case you should probably leave it off.

 

[Rubycon]

You will get the best performance running AHCI. The controller MUST have an ESATA port if you want hotswap capability. Otherwise it's just like pulling out an IDE drive while the system is running and Windows gets upset if you do this.

You may be running compatibility mode and DMA transfers for that port are disabled. Write back cache has little effect on CPU utilization and overall sequential transfer rate when reading. PIO mode will cause a great hit in both.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: DarkTXKnight
actualy for most drives that are designed to be removed, write caching is disabled. This is the case with external usb drives unless you specifically turn it on. This is to help prevent data loss should the drive get pulled. In your case you should probably leave it off.

I specifically enabled it, because the write performance without the cache is just pathetic.

Originally posted by: Rubycon
You will get the best performance running AHCI. The controller MUST have an ESATA port if you want hotswap capability. Otherwise it's just like pulling out an IDE drive while the system is running and Windows gets upset if you do this.

You may be running compatibility mode and DMA transfers for that port are disabled. Write back cache has little effect on CPU utilization and overall sequential transfer rate when reading. PIO mode will cause a great hit in both.

But if a drive can be dismounted with a utility like format or chkdsk, why can't it be dismounted with a separate utility, and then removed? I'll check thruogh the BIOS and see what it says for options, I think there was an AHCI option there.
I was also under the impression that one of the big selling points of SATA from the start was hotswap capability.

I'm pretty sure it was in DMA mode. Write speeds with cache enabled were at least 30MB/sec. With it disabled, speeds were around 1-2MB/sec.

 

[Rubycon]

It has to support hotswap from the BIOS to the hard drive itself. Any breakdown in compliance along that path will lead to problems including data corruption.

I have an enclosure that fits IDE drives and is USB2.0 compliant and it will read up to 38MB/S and write at up to 29MB/S or so. No problem swapping them out at all.

CHKDSK just dismounts the volume from the operating system but the hardware still has it running. Try accessing a volume that's being checked and you will see it but get AD when opening it.

 

[Jeff7]

I think I got it now. Guess what it was - Norton's Protected Recycle Bin. Windows kept saying that a program was accessing the hard drive. I shut down protection for that drive, and bam, just like that, Safely Remove Hardware disables it and ok's it for removal.

I updated the drivers for the SATA controller, and set it to ACHI mode. Now there is a checkbox for Write Cache in the drive's properties, which is NOT grayed out. Seems it's all good to go now.

 

[Jeff7]

Old thread, yes - but it gets a bump now.

My dad just got an external USB hard drive, and the Safely Remove Hardware thing won't give the thumbs-up for unplugging the drive. It is set to Optimize for Quick Removal.

I also tried forcibly dismounting the drive with chkdsk /x, but immediately after it finishes, SRH still insists that the drive is in use. Isn't there just some simple EXE that can completely and forcibly dismount a hard drive?

 

[Nothinman]

mountvol might do it, but I have no idea if it includes a flush to disk like umount in Linux.

 

[xtknight]

You may be able to use this to flush a drive's cache or "eject" it: http://technet.microsoft.com/e...nternals/bb897438.aspx

 

[Jeff7]

An update on this old, old thread:

I recently reinstalled Windows to deal with another problem - first the system told me I had no sound card installed, despite the fact that Winamp was playing music. I tried a registry transplant with a batch file from Microsoft. It gave "access denied" errors when it tried to back up and replace the damaged registry, but it deleted the registry with no problem. So, left with a severely crippled Windows install, I did a reformat, repartition, and reinstall.

Results:
1) The system no longer hard-locks for several seconds when I turn on a removable drive.
2) Safely Remove Hardware always works just fine, with no need for a forced dismount.

Weird.

Though maybe it was some background app or something that I haven't reloaded in yet that was causing the Remove Hardware dialog to say the drive was still in use.
Still, it'd be nice if there was simply a "force dismount" option in the SRH dialog box.

 

[geoffschultz]

This is the best discussion on this topic that I've found while searching the Internet. My issue is slightly different from what's been discussed. I have two 1 TB e-SATA drives that I use for backups. The Norton Ghost backups run nightly at 6 PM and the drives aren't accessed for any other reason. As a result it would be very nice if I could have the drives spin-down while they aren't in use.

I tried using Power Management to allow the disks to power down, and that kind of works. The drives spin down, but it seems that when I do certain directory operations (such as opening a file or saving a file) that the drives spin back up and the system pauses for several seconds while the drive is spinning back up. This also occurs at random times and this makes the system behavior very jerky and unpleasant to use.

My thought was that I could dismount the drives once the backups had completed and then remount the drives before the backups ran. I tried using

fsutil volume dismount F:

but that doesn't seem to have the effect that I'm looking for as the volume still appears on-line and mounted.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can achieve what this?

-- Geoff

 

[bruceb]

geoffschultz,

being as this thread is over a year old you should start a new one to ask for assistance.
You will also get better responses more tailored to your problems.