SOLVED USB drive in use, can't eject

[apami]

Hi

Every time I click on Safely Remove Hardware and then Eject I am told that the drive is still in use and to close any windows it is using, but every time I already did. The thumb drive doesn't automatically open a window when inserted the way it did in Windows 8 so there is no thumb drive window to close. Only the document I was working on and then saved to it. But I close that window and it still says the drive is in use. The only way I have been able to safely eject it is to turn off the pc and then remove it. How do I resolve this problem?

Thanks for any help.

 

[Ian]

I wonder if you've got another app that is accessing the drive in the background. For example, does your AV software scan the USB drive automatically?

If you're OK with doing a bit of digging, then you could try using Process Monitor and see which apps are accessing your USB drive to identify the problem:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896645

If you find out then please do let us know .

 

[bassfisher6522]

I've had that happen to me a few time under windows 10....like Ian suggested, I had to do some digging to find out where/what was still using it. Once I found the culprit and closed it then the safely remove thumb drive worked as it should.

In my case, one was the office suite I was using that I still had open. another was skype, a file transfer, even though I received the file, skype considered it still open. I shut down skype then I could safely remove thumb drive.

 

[apami]

I wonder if you've got another app that is accessing the drive in the background. For example, does your AV software scan the USB drive automatically?

If you're OK with doing a bit of digging, then you could try using Process Monitor and see which apps are accessing your USB drive to identify the problem:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896645

If you find out then please do let us know .

I opened my AV program and checked everything as best I knew how to see if it was accessing my USB drive but I couldn't see if it was or not. I am not tech savvy, so not sure if that was the way to find out. And being that I'm not, would Process Monitor be something I could figure out how to use to see if I can identify what is accessing the USB drive? If it is an advanced program it might not help me.

I tried closing Skype as bassfisher6522 mentioned as something that worked for him but it made no difference. Whatever is accessing the drive is doing so in the background as I closed everything.

I have noticed if I wait a really long time, like half an hour or more, then finally I'm told I can safely remove the drive.

 

[Trouble]

I have noticed if I wait a really long time, like half an hour or more, then finally I'm told I can safely remove the drive.

Me Too.
It happens sometimes (not all the time) with Windows 10 and IDK why.
However generally if you right click the USB device Icon in the notification area again and you don't see the option to safely remove it, then it likely is...... (safe to remove it) and if you do, you may still get the notification popup a half hour later.

If you're getting the "device is being used" dialog box, then it probably is and a completely different issue, as has been discussed above in other posts.

 

[apami]

I wonder if you've got another app that is accessing the drive in the background. For example, does your AV software scan the USB drive automatically?

If you're OK with doing a bit of digging, then you could try using Process Monitor and see which apps are accessing your USB drive to identify the problem:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896645

If you find out then please do let us know .

I finally found out what was accessing the drive so I couldn't eject it, it was OneDrive, because I was saving my document to three places, the desktop, OneDrive and the USB drive. Now I only save it to the drive and the desktop, then I close the document, remove the drive, then reopen the document and save it to OneDrive. Kind of a hassle, but perhaps one day I can find out how to close OneDrive so I can save my document to all three places and still be able to remove the USB drive afterward.