Top 4 Ways to Safely Unmount USB Drive in Windows

Lost data, corrupted filesystems, crashing programs...

Those are results of removing drives from Windows without safely removing (ejecting) them.

Certainly, many of you take USB disks out without disconnecting them and did not have any problems. You were just lucky. The time will come, when you least expect it, that you will remove drive during data operations and it will get corrupted.

There is an option in Windows called Optimize for quick removal. It makes operating system immediately save files on disk without caching them. Sounds good right? Unfortunately, it is not entirely clear how much you can trust Windows on this plus with a little bit of bad luck you can physically remove the disk just when data operations are in progress.

In general, this is what happens when you safely remove device:

1. System flushes all active writes to disk.
2. System informs all programs (that know how to be informed) that the disk is going to be removed, and to take proper actions.
3. System alerts the user about the results:
   • Shows warning when programs have failed to take action and still are holding files open on that drive.
   • Shows confirmation when programs have released all files on that drive.

1. Expand hidden icons in tray by clicking expand icon.

   

2. Click icon Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media.

   

3. Click on drive you want to eject.

   

4. Wait for the confirmation window. When you see it, you can safely remove drive.

   

1. Right click (right mouse button) on the drive you want to unmount.

2. Click Eject from the context menu.

   

3. Wait for the confirmation window.

   

1. Select disk you want to unmount.

2. Click Eject button in Manage top bar.

   

3. Wait for the confirmation window.

   

This doesn't work on Windows 10 any more. The window will be shown but any attempt to eject disk will end with error.

The ‘Device Name’ device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged.

This has been confirmed on March 12, 2018 by Kate Li from Microsoft in this thread. Additionally, I have confirmed with senior product group and get the answer is: This is not an issue, since this interface function has been retired in Windows 10

1. Execute one of those commands in run box. You also can easily create shortcut for them if you use them often.

   control.exe hotplug.dll

   or

   RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

2. Select disk you want to unmount.

3. Click Stop.