Cannot safely eject Seagate usb Expansion Drive

I got my new Seagate 2 TB Expansion Drive and made the first image of my new laptop (running Win 10 anniversary build) using Macrium Reflect. All went well, and I closed Macrium, then attempted to eject the external drive from the notification area. I consistently got an error message saying the drive could not be ejected and until the program using it was closed. Task Manager confirmed no application was running. Device Manager could not remove the drive, either. Shutting down the computer and then removing the drive was no problem, but surely this shouldn't be necessary. Any advice would be welcome!

Welcome to the forum anything that's connected to the drive can do this explorer or even word that may have file history open

Thanks for the reply! No apps were open, and I ended the Macrium process in Task Maganger. I could find nothing else open or running.

gini said:

No apps were open, and I ended the Macrium process in Task Maganger.

Task Manager is an app too, and one that monitors any USB HDD on it's Performance tab. I cannot safely eject an external HDD while Task Manager is open. Close it and try again.

Bree said:

Task Manager is an app too, and one that monitors any USB HDD on it's Performance tab. I cannot safely eject an external HDD while Task Manager is open. Close it and try again.

I did not leave Task Manager; I closed it immediately after checking it and ending the Macrium process. I'll experiment further after a short vacation back on my Win 7 computers!:)

You know when you connect two har drives you os is working on it too which means one of the system processes are using your drive or it may simply be a problem with the drive ...If possible cross check the drive with another pc and it shield be clear to you

There could be a number of reasons the system is prompting you that the drive is still in use, all systems differ, but the most obvious may be that the drive is still a live part of the array of drives on your system.
However, the most probable reason might be that Defender is still monitoring the drive; if you 'Add an Exclusion' for that drive in Settings, you probably won't get that prompt.
Furthermore, unless the drive has been designated for write caching, it should be defaulted for quick removal anyway; check the policies:



So..., if you're not actually transferring files or have the drive open for other tasks, you should be able to remove it.

Edwin said:

There could be a number of reasons the system is prompting you that the drive is still in use, all systems differ, but the most obvious may be that the drive is still a live part of the array of drives on your system.
However, the most probable reason might be that Defender is still monitoring the drive; if you 'Add an Exclusion' for that drive in Settings, you probably won't get that prompt.
Furthermore, unless the drive has been designated for write caching, it should be defaulted for quick removal anyway; check the policies:



So..., if you're not actually transferring files or have the drive open for other tasks, you should be able to remove it.

Thanks! The "quick removal" option is checked in the drive's policies (it was on by default), but I will try adding the exclusion for the drive in Defender. I will also try connecting the drive to my Win 7 computer and will see if the same situation occurs with a different external hard drive connected to the Win 10 laptop. I will return with results and hope to soon mark this issue closed.

gini said:

Thanks! The "quick removal" option is checked in the drive's policies (it was on by default), but I will try adding the exclusion for the drive in Defender. I will also try connecting the drive to my Win 7 computer and will see if the same situation occurs with a different external hard drive connected to the Win 10 laptop. I will return with results and hope to soon mark this issue closed.

Good idea!
Play it safe! :)

I'm going to mark this thread closed for now, as I had no problem ejecting the external drive yesterday. I had noticed that CCleaner's monitoring option was on by default, and I discontinued this before connecting the Seagate drive. I didn't experiment further, as this issue can wait indefinitely. Worse case, I just turn off the computer before disconnecting the drive!

Thank you for the replies and help you've all offered!