Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device "This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again."

Anonymous

Original title:Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

When I try to safely eject my external hard drive safely I get an error message with this title telling me that "This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again." I have done this. I have also tried closing every program running on the computer and it does not help. I have also tried restarting the computer and this also does nothing. If anyone has any ideas that would be helpful please let me know.

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Anonymous

Hi A. Cook,

1) How long have you been facing this issue?

2) Is this issue confined to any specific USB device?

This behavior can occur if there are open handles with any files in the USB (Universal Serial Bus) Mass Storage Device are in use by another program.

Method 1:

a) Download Process Explorer from the link below

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

b) Click Find, Find Handle or DLL (Dynamic Link Library) in the tool menu.

c) Type the drive letter of the USB device in the Handle or DLL substring textbox, and press Search Button.

d) Find the process and its PID (Process Identifier) in the following box.

e) In system process tree view, find the process according to the Find Handle or DLL dialog box.

f) Press Ctrl + H to show Handles in Lower Pane View.

g) Find the File according with the drive letter, and right click it, choose Close Handle.

Reference:

Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Devicehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/555665

Note: Using Third Party Software, including hardware drivers can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Third Party Software can be solved. Using Third Party Software is at your own risk.

**Method 2:**You may refer the steps provided by Diana D in the link below

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows\_vista-hardware/problem-ejecting-usb-mass-storage-deviceits-in-use/fd56805c-ed8e-491f-8a2b-39ed1c988a71

Method 3: Run an online scan for any threat and try to fix them

**http://onecare.live.com/site/en-Us/center/cleanup.htm**

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53 additional answers

Anonymous

2017-01-09T14:51:48+00:00

Thank you Nouschcat! I take your knowledgeable response to this very old problem to be a sign of the pending apocalypse. It must be frustrating to work for a company that is too busy moving the start menu to work on real usability issues.
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Anonymous

2017-01-07T20:41:12+00:00
Nouschcat, your explanation raises several questions:
1. This problem affects multi-TB hard drives that come pre-formatted as NTFS just as it does small flash drives. If exFAT is the file system of choice for removable drives then why is it I've never seen anything except SDXC cards (for which exFAT is the official file system) being sold pre-formatted with it, instead of NTFS?
2. I have some drives that always get ejected properly on the very first attempt, and others that will stubbornly refuse every single attempt at safe removal. Even the manufacturer can't explain why this happens. Why would Windows single out certain drives for special treatment?
3. Perhaps you can explain why, if NTFS formatted USB drives are treated as internal (non-removable) fixed drives, the Safely Remove Hardware icon and Eject option is still available for them?
4. Most importantly, since the Eject option is indeed available, why the heck can't MS make TxF respond to a user's explicit demand for drive removal and initiate cessation of its journaling operations or whatever the <beep> it is doing? The "Sorry, cannot eject drive right now because it is in use" dialog is probably the most irritating and useless one I've seen in Windows to date. The OS won't bother to tell users what process if any is still writing to the drive, nor will it terminate the process after a certain period and inform the user that the drive is ready for removal, or really do anything useful at all. Just a dumb "Drive is busy right now, G.T.F.O. my lawn" message that is a TOTAL usability fail. Clearly the feature was coded by people who care nothing about user experience, or are incompetent, or quite likely both.
</rant>
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Anonymous

2017-01-07T18:23:58+00:00

So it's a known bug, then. So fix it instead of pretending that it's ok. ExFat shouldn't be a requirement for 2+ TB external drive that's being used for video production.
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Anonymous

2017-01-07T17:49:59+00:00

The problem is caused by formatting a removable USB drive as a NTFS volume.

The drive is in use (locked) by the Windows Transactional NTFS feature. (abbreviated TxF)

Transactional NTFS was introduced with Windows Vista as a NTFS 6.0 stability improvement.

Traditionally removable USB flash drives should be formatted as a FAT32 volume.

Formatting the drive as an NTFS volume causes Windows Vista and later, to treat it as in internal (non-removable) fixed drive.

The solution is to format the USB drive as a FAT32 volume.

However files larger than 4GB can NOT be stored on a FAT32 volume.

Formatting the flash drive as a exFAT volume will resolve both issues.

On flash drives exFAT has a much better performance than FAT32.

NTFS on flash memory has been known to be inefficient; exFAT’s smaller footprint and overhead makes it the ideal filesystem for removable flash drives.

Another point for exFAT against NTFS on removable media is, exFAT doesn't support file ownership and permissions, so you won't experience any limitation caused by these features of NTFS when moving files from one system to another.
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