Windows XP_Safely Remove Hardware

[fire400]

damaged or no damage?

I'm getting sick of safely removing hardware from the software mode?

Anyone encounter this annoyance? But if it is absolutely necessary, I guess it's not that bad.

Any suggestions if I just pull my USB drive out without "safely removing" it?

 

[Geiser34]

My 250GB external hard drive got 4 bad sectors when I was doing a backup and my cat decided to jump off me, and onto the cord.
I now have 20 bad sectors.
The drive is usable, but the drive has to be reformated after I put more than 20 megabytes on it.
Always safely remove!

 

[Smartazz]

I pull my jump drives out without safely removing them all the time. I will safely remove them if there is critical data on them, I won't take a risk with important files, but as long as I can find those files again I just pull it out. Sometimes my laptop won't even let me eject the devices, it just crashes.

 

[KaChow]

I always remove safely although I've never seen a problem with not doing it in XP. I have had some corruption in the past on Windows 2000 systems by not removing safely.

 

[bruceb]

I agree ... Use the Safely Remove Icon in the System Tray
Why take a chance of ruining either the Drive or your Data ? ?

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: Geiser34
My 250GB external hard drive got 4 bad sectors when I was doing a backup and my cat decided to jump off me, and onto the cord.
I now have 20 bad sectors.
The drive is usable, but the drive has to be reformated after I put more than 20 megabytes on it.
Always safely remove!

I always just pull it out, if it's my own jump drive. However, in the case of an external hard drive, that's a bit different I would think And I'm sure more people would safely remove hard ware if working with a 250gb external hard drive. however, my 2gb thumbdrive just gets popped out whenever.

Not sure whether because it's flash memory versus actual hardware components moving and what not like a regular hard drive...

 

[Sforsyth]

I never safely remove my thumb drive but with my External HD I have a file go bad from this I think.

 

[Kelnoen]

Always pull thumb drives, always safely remove external HDD's.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Kelnoen
Always pull thumb drives, always safely remove external HDD's.

Bzzzzzt. Try again.

The problem has nothing to do with the hardware of the drive; it has to do with Windows caching data before writing it to the device.

Either use 'Safely Remove', or disable write caching to the devices (select "Optimize for quick removal" under the device properties menu). If write caching is disabled and nothing is writing to the device, you should be able to pull it whenever you want with no damage. Newer versions of WinXP may automatically disable write caching for some devices, but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Oyeve]

I have corrupted a 2gb flash drive by just pulling it. Lost all data and had to use EasyRecover which got all my data but I had to piece it all back together which is a PIA! Since then I use the safe remove.

 

[pkme2]

I have always stopped my usb drives first before removal. In case of external hdds, it's quite necessary.
If one disregards this, I can see the possibility of damaged platters on usb HDDs. .

For my usb readers, pulling a memory stick, I found isn't necessary to stop. Hot swapping is AOK.

 

[acole1]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Kelnoen
Always pull thumb drives, always safely remove external HDD's.

Bzzzzzt. Try again.

The problem has nothing to do with the hardware of the drive; it has to do with Windows caching data before writing it to the device.

Either use 'Safely Remove', or disable write caching to the devices (select "Optimize for quick removal" under the device properties menu). If write caching is disabled and nothing is writing to the device, you should be able to pull it whenever you want with no damage. Newer versions of WinXP may automatically disable write caching for some devices, but I wouldn't count on it.

QFT

This is why, usually, you can pull a thumb drive safely but cannot pull an external drive safely.

Check the settings on the drive to verify if is "Optimized for safe removal" before you start pulling.

I have mine set this way and I always pull my thumb drive... only once or twice have I done it too soon and lost the latest file or two I put on there, but other than that I have never had a problem with drive corruption from pulling it.

On the other side of things, I would never pull my external drive without safely stopping it first.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I usually safely remove, but my rule is..if its not being read/writeing then you can unplug it, but when it comes to external hard drives, allways safely remove.

 

[Kelnoen]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Kelnoen
Always pull thumb drives, always safely remove external HDD's.

Bzzzzzt. Try again.

The problem has nothing to do with the hardware of the drive; it has to do with Windows caching data before writing it to the device.

Either use 'Safely Remove', or disable write caching to the devices (select "Optimize for quick removal" under the device properties menu). If write caching is disabled and nothing is writing to the device, you should be able to pull it whenever you want with no damage. Newer versions of WinXP may automatically disable write caching for some devices, but I wouldn't count on it.

I always make sure my thumb drives are set to quick removal... Bzzzzzzt Ding ding ding

 

[randomlinh]

i think half the time i try to safely remove... it yells at me saying it can't do it. really annoying.

oddly enough, i'll eject everything on my mac.

 

[HiME]

Originally posted by: acole1

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Kelnoen
Always pull thumb drives, always safely remove external HDD's.

Bzzzzzt. Try again.

The problem has nothing to do with the hardware of the drive; it has to do with Windows caching data before writing it to the device.

Either use 'Safely Remove', or disable write caching to the devices (select "Optimize for quick removal" under the device properties menu). If write caching is disabled and nothing is writing to the device, you should be able to pull it whenever you want with no damage. Newer versions of WinXP may automatically disable write caching for some devices, but I wouldn't count on it.

QFT

This is why, usually, you can pull a thumb drive safely but cannot pull an external drive safely.

Check the settings on the drive to verify if is "Optimized for safe removal" before you start pulling.

I have mine set this way and I always pull my thumb drive... only once or twice have I done it too soon and lost the latest file or two I put on there, but other than that I have never had a problem with drive corruption from pulling it.

On the other side of things, I would never pull my external drive without safely stopping it first.

It doesn't matter if it's a thumb drive or external drive. It's always dangerous if any of your program is still connected to the drive. Make sure you know the programs aren't keeping temporary files on your drive and you'll be fine (even though most of them don't).

I always pull out my thumb drive without safety remove. There was this one time when I was using OpenOffice. For some reason, the program remain connected to my thumb drive even I'd already closed the program. I pulled the thumb drive out without safety removal and all the data got erased.

I safety remove my external hard drive because it's more expansive than thumb drives.

Isn't that windows won't allow us to open cache on external drives??

 

[Bob Anderson]

Originally posted by: randomlinh
i think half the time i try to safely remove... it yells at me saying it can't do it. really annoying.

oddly enough, i'll eject everything on my mac.

-------------------------

9 times out of 10 I have to do the safely remove hardware eject twice, for both of my externals. I have write caching enabled. I tried setting both to optimize for quick removal, but then I got warning messages that write caching was disabled! So, back to write caching. I forget were I saw the warning messages, but probably in event viewer/system.

But it is better to be safe that sorry, so I always use SRH in XP for my external USB drives.

-Bob

 

[oogabooga]

It's not good advice, but I never did the safely remove hardware thing for my flash drive and it was fine.

With my extrenal hard drive it has crashed a couple times, but in general if i can I will safely remove it.