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

2013-06-05T21:32:44+00:00

Thanks to bill33 for stating that Process Explorer needs to be run in admin mode to see all of the processes. When I first ran Process Explorer, it didn't show any processes using the drive which was supposedly in use. After restarting Process Explorer in admin mode, the process using the drive became immediately apparent. It was a non-essential service, which I shut down properly using Services from the Administrative tools in the Control panel. After that, there was no complaint when ejecting the drive. Easy!

For those who don't know how to run Process Explorer in administrator mode: right-click on the Process Explorer program (or the link to it, depending on how you have it set up.) A menu will open. Select "Run as administrator" from the menu. Then enter the drive letter, followed by a colon, in the search box, as described previously. Including the colon will prevent the listing of thousands of non-relevant search results.
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Anonymous

2013-06-06T03:41:41+00:00

try this you might not need to put your computer to sleep again and again

http://biosmatrix.blogspot.in/2013/06/this-device-is-currently-in-use-close.html
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Anonymous

2013-09-13T09:51:59+00:00

Finally decided to defeat this niggling issue on the GF's notebook.

The steps in Ajay K's Method 1, based on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555665, essentially work--with the vital clarification by bill33 and chetwoot that Process Explorer must be run in admin mode (right-click Process Explorer executable and select "Run as administrator"). When I simply ran the program not in admin mode, the search in step (b) was incomplete.

Next, because we're talking about USB storage devices being locked, simply search the drive letter assigned to the device, followed by a colon, as instructed by AshkanHaghighi. Follow the remaining steps and you should be able to discover the culprit. A tip is to sort the results in the lower pane by the Name column, then look for entries beginning with the letter of the affected drive (e.g. "G:").

In my case, it was the ever pesky wmpnetwk.exe process belonging to Windows Media Player as part of its network media sharing function, something we do not use. There were two handles involving the locked drive, which I closed according to the instructions. Then presto, the drive became safe to remove.

I tried to take things a bit further by disabling wmpnetwk.exe entirely according to http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/what-are-wmpnscfgexe-and-wmpnetwkexe-and-why-are-they-running/, but that's for WMP 11 and we've got 12. Apparently there's no neat way to disable media sharing in WMP 12. I may alternatively disable the service as described in that article if it proves to be a consistent problem. At least now I know what process to kill in Task Manager whenever a USB drive is locked.
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