How to solve Windows' inability to safely remove hardware?

I only set pendrives/memory cards as removeable.
All other drives are set to have no write behind cacheing and set to be non-quick removal.
I've seen too many 'removeable drives' become 'no data'

I am a beginner, and I wonder if you can explain how you set the drives as you describe (I have also seen the message described by Bob, and I would hate my data to become 'no data'). Also, are there any drawbacks or pitfalls in doing it the way you describe? Please bear with my ignorance...

My computer
select pendrive
right click on it's icon
select hardware
select device
select policies

picture should show you what i mean

pitfalls are that you sometimes have to wait for data to be written , you'll see the light going like billywizz , but better than it not yet writing data to drive as the other version allows.

another thing you should do is check whether USB/USB2 has been set to powersaving .... that can make a big difference to reliability of these flash drives.

I've had that message a fedw times, and have rebooted to fix it. I've only lost data once, and that was catastrophic, I lost the source file for a dvd com-ilation and had to try to recompile it from other data with, eventually, zero success (that's the one that I've been banging on about in the "problems with Movie Factory" thread). But it's only happened to me once, and I'm damn sure I'm not going to let it happen again.

Thanks Bob (and Gary, you've shown what I now do with all external drives).

P.S.: don't you just hate the ads on these sites? The Google ads run down the left hand side, fixed location, concealing about 20% of the page itself which scroills behind it, making it virtually impossible to find the instructions and download site.

for all usb/usb2 devices , check the usb hub settings
since making the following change , i have not had a usb device commit suicide on me.
it appears that xpsp2 sets power saving to on as default , and some chipsets have problems with it.

Can anyone explain to me why lousy design features (such as the above problems with removing everyday computer gadgets) are perpetuated in software designed (supposedly) for 'Home' use through version after version?

It's impossible that the designers don't realise that they have created the problem but is it arrogance or stupidity that stops them from doing anything about it?

Ray Liffen

computers are about the only piece of hardware that you can upgrade with 'any manufacturers' pieces.

any usb device should work on a usb connector , but , not any spark plug will work in any cars spark plug connector.

each piece of hardware should have a unique id and follow the 'master instruction set'

yeah right .... some companies decide to nick another companies unique id , 'cos our piece is 99.9% same as other kit'

and who is to blame ultimately .... we are

we want it cheaper every day.
without high volume sales , because everything gets superceded yesterday , they cut corners

thats why i buy from

samsung
sony
panasonic

i pay a bit more , but have far fewer problems with 'niggles' than many others.
my hardware , if connected to the net , finds the correct drivers for all it's hardware.

our dell, mesh and viglen laptops don't.
you need to download the installation package
install
reboot pc

for each of the motherboard drivers.

If i was in the pc maintenance business i would want to sell dell/mesh/viglen .... more chance of being called out to 'fix' something that isn't broken , only 'not correctly installed'

Hi
CP/M>MS-DOS>(DR-DOS)>WINv1/2/3/3.1>(OS/2)>WIN95>WIN98>WIN-ME...
WIN-NT3/3.5/4>WIN2000>WIN-XP-Pro/Home...

None of that looks remotely anything other than an operating system designed to run on IBM-compatible computers in an office environment with technical support staff and trainers.

None of these OSs are in any way operable in a home environment with other home devices like TVs, radios, phones, dishwashers, central heating programmers etc. A more equivalent device is the motor car, but the user training/testing is there to ensure sensible usage.

Use of a Microsoft-OSed computer surely requires at least as intensive a training period - as is done in a corporate environment.

If it didn't already exist in the form it nowadays does surely no one would create it so ;)

Luckily this (and other) forums exist to put the ignorant in direct communication with the knowledgeable. Hooray :)

Yes, yes! Many thanks to Gary for taking the time to enlighten the less experienced amongst us. And I will trouble him again with some more questions:

1.-Can one also "optimize for quick removal" firewire hardware apart from USB? I have an external Lacie hard drive, connected by firewire.
2.-Whether the answer to the above is yes or no. At the moment everytime I want to use the Lacie, I switch on the computer, I plug in the firewire connection, and then switch on the hard drive. And when I finish, I "safely disconnect" (if it allows me to do it...), unplug the firewire connection, and then switch off the hard drive. It feels a bit clumsy, and I am worried that switching on and off may eventually damage the switch. Is there a better way to do it?

You can ..... I WOULDN'T.

I'd hate to see GB's of data vapourise , i've managed so far only to vapourise a 512MB pendrive through a bad usb connection , and a 20GB external firewire drive thru a bad ICYBOX taking out 2 x 20GB drives.
( second drive was inserted because we knew the first drive could be ropey , it was a fujitsu 'viglen ' drive which we had many ide failures with as did most viglen purchasers.

as for a better way , I use the on/off switches in preference to anything else.
hot plugging is fine for self powerred units , but mains powerred ..... don't like the idea.

old rules from days gone by.

1. power up monitor.
2. power up peripherals
3. power up cpu

3. power down cpu
2. power down peripherals/monitor.
1. unplug device you want to move elsewhere.

I try not to unplug ( data cables from ) a still mains powerred device , it can cause problems , and with my luck at the moment .... CAN turns to WILL

I use a LaCie with both firewire and USB connection (on different machines). If I'm not finished on a project, I turn on the LaCie power supply first, then power up the PC. The software turns the drive on and it all works. I don't unplug the drive unless I want to move it to another machine, and then I "safely remove" it first. I've only once done it wrong, and lost a unique video file as a result (it was corrupted but not "lost" as such) and subsequently lost the possibility to make a wanted dvd from it.

Hi
There seems to be a dfference between USB and FW, in that some USB devices only function properly if they are hot-plugged into the computer whilst the OS is running.

FW can work this way, but the experts seem to say that it is better to connect then power-up the drive before switching on the computer.

And after use to stop/eject/unmount a FW drive before closing-down the OS and powering-down the computer, then powering down the drive before disconnection.

It is essential to have a disk utility that can maintain/repair a FireWire/USB drive's directory to ensure long-term data integrity.

Gary,

Sorry, until now, I somehow missed your postings in this thread, and all other postings here, too.

:(

First thing to say is that, of course, I do have all USB flash drives and camera cards set as removable, as per your suggestion and, conversely, I do have all USB hard drives set as optimized for performance.

However...

...subsequent to your posting about usb hub power settings, I saw that it is indeed the case that XP has set all these to the "allow" setting on my main PC - so I've now undone this on all eight USB hubs .

I'll now try to monitor things to see if this reduces problems with removing USB devices using the "Safely Remove Hardware" tool in Windows system tray.

Cheers

Bob