Can't "safely remove" external hard drive, dllhost.exe holding lock

Paul Black said:

Hello @ExtremeUnction,

Have you looked at the Device Properties of the Drive?
Is it set for Quick Removal or Performance?

It is set for "Quick removal".

So perhaps there isn't too much risk to unplugging it even when it says it can't safely remove. The reason I'm nervous about doing that is that I know this drive uses shingled magnetic recording, so I was worried that I could unplug it and disconnect its power in the middle of it doing some internal re-organization of the data.

Try the safe method.
Shut down,power off,unplug usb,restart,plug in usb and see if the "safely remove" operates normally.
If not,then use ---sfc /scannow---and ---dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth---to fix any file corruption.

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Forgot to mention,go to Control Panel and check the Device and Printer section for the usb.

Will try the reboot.

sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.19041.844

Image Version: 10.0.19042.985

[==========================100.0%==========================] The restore operation completed successfully.
The operation completed successfully.

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joeandmarg0 said:

Shut down,power off,unplug usb,restart,plug in usb and see if the "safely remove" operates normally.

I rebooted without the USB drive attached. Waited like 30 seconds, then plugged in the drive. Waited another 30 seconds and used Process Explorer to see if that dllhost was holding any locks. No locks were held. I did the "safely remove" option from the system tray and it worked without any issues.

So it seems that if the drive is not attached when booting up, then the dllhost.exe doesn't take out a lock on the root folder.

joeandmarg0 said:

Forgot to mention,go to Control Panel and check the Device and Printer section for the usb.

I checked the Devices and Printers section under Control Panel and the USB drive does appear there as "Elements 2621".