New Windows 10 Pro install. When I click on the USB icon to eject a flash drive the flash drive shows up, but the option to eject USB flash memory is missing.
Windows 10 Issue
How it should look, but this is from a Win 7 machine.
All USBs or just this one?
It may just be that the wrong driver was loaded when you first used this USB. Try opening Device Manager, find the USB in 'Disk Drives', right-click on it then 'Uninstall device' (you may need to select 'View > Show hidden devices' if the USB isn't currently connected).
You are probably right about the wrong driver installed or it may have been no driver installed. It was both with USB 3 and USB 2 sticks.
It was on a new PC I just built yesterday and installed Windows this morning. This afternoon after I ran update numerous times until Windows downloaded all available updates and the problem was gone the next time I plugged a USB stick in and went to eject it.
And don't forget in File Explorer is the Eject on the right-click menu on the drive, same for CD or DVD discs.
I have the same problem as OP, but only for one USB device and only on one 22H2 PC. No such problem on a 20H2 PC.
I never installed any drivers on either, they both use some generic 2006 Windows driver. I tried the suggestion above (uninstalling the driver) and it didn't help.
I can still "Eject" it in Explorer, though, so it's not a big deal. But I'm posting here just in case anyone knows something. My guess is that this is just a 22H2 "bug" or compatibility issue.
This is usually true for USB 3.0 flash drives. I just make sure the drive is not reading or writing for several seconds and just unplug it. USB 2.0 flash drives show when trying to eject.
Now that I thought of it again, this happens when connecting a USB 3.0 flash drive on a USB 2.0 port. If your computers has USB 3.0 or faster ports and you plug the USB 3.0 flash drive there it should appear when trying to eject. I cannot confirm this right now, anyone else?
I don't know what the confusion is about. You eject flash drives in the System Tray. Note, in Windows 10 this shouldn't be necessary for removable media but it is there if you want to use it.
To understand why you don't have to eject a flash drive look at its Properties in the Device Manager. If you select the Policies tab you will see the default is to Disable Write Caching. This is what allows you to just pull out the flash drive without first ejecting it.
Note, for better performance you can Enable Write Caching. The catch is you have to then start using the Eject in the System Tray if you want to prevent data loss.
Look at the screenshots that the OP posted. The eject option is missing and it's not clear why.
In my case I'm using the same device, same driver and the same removal policies. But on one system the eject option is there and on the other it isn't.
And I forgot to mention that this is a Ventoy USB drive with two partitions. I think this is related to the problem.
Last edited by centen; 19 Mar 2023 at 12:15.
I just confirmed it yesterday. I connected my USB 3.0 flash drive on my father's computer that has USB 3.0 ports and the option to eject is there as expected. If I connect the same flash drive in my computer which only has USB 2.0 ports the option is not there, only for USB 2.0 drives. So I just wait a few seconds to make sure there is no activity and remove it without using the safe removal. Next time I plug it I get a warning and asks to scan it for errors, but I decline to save time and to avoid messing with my data. In the past I scanned a couple of USB disks and then I missed some data! So I never scan them, unless I have some serious issues I need to fix.
In my case it doesn't seem related to USB 2 or USB 3. The problem device is USB 2 and I already tried it in both ports, it didn't make any difference.
I think it has something to do with it having two partitions and maybe something else that Ventoy did to it.
Quote
