USB Device Safe Removal

You cannot just pull the USB plug out of the computer and not possibly cause a problem.

You have to do an orderly dismount of the USB drive.

Look for the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the system tray.

Left Click on it.

Then click on the window.

If there is no program accessing the drive, then the drive will be removed from the system and you can remove the USB cable and the drive.

If you get a message that the device cannot be stopped, ("generic volume cannot be stopped because a program is still accessing it") then you either have to wait an undetermined amount of time, or you just shut down the computer and disconnect the drive and reboot.

generic volume cannot be stopped beause a program is still accessing it

If you double click on the icon in the system tray, this is the window that you will get.

safely remove hardware

You can try stopping the service here too but it won’t make any difference if it won’t stop by simply clicking on the icon.

One thing you can check is if your drive is optimized for Quick removal. Go to System Properties, Device Manager, Disk Drives, Double click on your drive and then on the Policies Tab, Optimize for Quick Removal.

Device Manager

select your usb drive

Optimize for Quick Removal