Cannot Safely Remove External Drives

crawfish said:

FWIW, I have to close Task Manager before Windows 8.1 will allow safely eject, so if you've left it running in the notification area to monitor CPU usage, try closing it.

THANK YOU!!! This worked in Windows 10.

Open Device Manager, find "disk drives" and your "external drive" in the list of devices, uninstall the driver for your hard drive and then you can safely remove it. The device driver for your external drive "SHOULD" reinstall automatically next time you want to use the drive.

Something to note on Widows 10 is that when a drive is in the Navigation Pane - it is constantly locked and treated as in use by the OS

You may want to read this link - as its all part of the problem
Drives in Navigation Pane - Add or Remove in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

caphe said:

Hello all,
In recent weeks, it has become impossible for me to safely remove my external drives. (Mostly, I use Western Digital Passports, Passport Ultras, etc).

I am using Windows 10.

I close all of my programs and folders. I get the "busy" message and to try again later. I run Unlocker on the drives, and Unlocker shows no activity or actions that I can take. I bring up my task manager and nothing is running. I try to safely eject from the WD utility and it doesn't work. I try to eject by going to my computer, right clicking on the drive, and ejecting from there. Sometimes I simply wait for half an hour, read some articles, try again. I get the same "busy" or can't shut down message.

I read online that I could try to Device Manager, click on the drive, and under policies select "Optimize for Performance." However, the computer must restart for changes to take place, and when i've tried, I get stuck on an infinite "Restarting" screen.

I read somewhere that I can try to empty a hidden recycle bin on my external, but I can't seem to reveal it?

I tried posting in the WD community forum and did not receive helpful tips there.

Nothing I do lets me eject these drives. I have to shut down my entire computer every time I want to remove a drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

hi all ,
i am also facing same problem but i got the solution .. what all you need do is ...

go to search bar n search for Device manager ..
then in list find WD drive management devices->WD SES device

mouse right click ->uninstall driver (make sure you check on Delete driver from PC

then dont scan for hardware changes ,dont even remove your hard disk ,just shutdown your WINDOWS10 pc/lappy -->

then after remove hard disk , login in your windows 10 ,
connect Hard drive ,wait for driver installation & check whether you are able to remove it safely Or Not ..
IT WORKS FOR ME ...

Mooly said:

Having this issue too. Clean 32 bit install of latest build and 'safely remove' option always reports the drive is use when it is not.

hi all ,
i am also facing same problem but i got the solution .. what all you need do is ...

go to search bar n search for Device manager ..
then in list find WD drive management devices->WD SES device

mouse right click ->uninstall driver (make sure you check on Delete driver from PC

then dont scan for hardware changes ,dont even remove your hard disk ,just shutdown your WINDOWS10 pc/lappy -->

then after remove hard disk , login in your windows 10 ,
connect Hard drive ,wait for driver installation & check whether you are able to remove it safely Or Not ..
IT WORKS FOR ME ...

TeChHelp said:

go to search bar n search for Device manager ..
then in list find WD drive management devices->WD SES device

mouse right click ->uninstall driver (make sure you check on Delete driver from PC

then dont scan for hardware changes ,dont even remove your hard disk ,just shutdown your WINDOWS10 pc/lappy -->

then after remove hard disk , login in your windows 10 ,
connect Hard drive ,wait for driver installation & check whether you are able to remove it safely Or Not ..
IT WORKS FOR ME ...

Thank you!!! Confirmed. I have never been able to safely eject my WD My Passport Ultra external drive, ever since I upgraded to Windows 10. This solved the problem. And now it can be safely removed.

You Welcome .. :)

progcode said:

Thank you!!! Confirmed. I have never been able to safely eject my WD My Passport Ultra external drive, ever since I upgraded to Windows 10. This solved the problem. And now it can be safely removed.

you are welcome ...

cafe racer said:

Yes, this worked! Thanks for the tip.

I have 3 external ESATA drives with the same problem. The difference is that each ESATA drive has a different manufactures HDD. Hitachi, Samsung & Toshiba, I figured I would follow the same instructions, but the only thing that I could think to do since none were WD drives was to go into the device manager and open up each one in the "Disk Drives" drop down menu, go into each ones properties, and uninstall the drivers and reboot the PC with them still powered up, that did NOT work? Now what???