Cannot eject safely an external USB drive

Hello,
Recently I bought one "WD Elements" 1TB external drive for data storage. When attachet it to the pc, it was found by the file explorer, it is already NTFS formated, one whole partition.
On it found "WD Smartware pro trial" installer and an 'autorun.inf' file.
Nothing was written to the drive yet. Then I wanted to eject it, but right-click in the file explorer was not the option 'eject', so I opened the 'show hidden icons' and cliced on 'safely remove/eject' the drive, got a notice as on attached screenshot.
Disabled AVG antivirus, Ccleaner monitoring, File indexing, still could not eject it.
In devices and printers tried to remove the drive - failed, ran troubleshooter, it fixed some problem, again tried to eject safely, still warning from the system.
Finally had to shut down the computer to disconnect the drive.
Is the 'autorun.inf' file creating the trouble ?
I do not intend to use the program "WD Smartware pro trial" it is not installed, this is only the installer, can I delete both the installer and the 'autorun.inf'.
After I overcome this problem, I want to re-partition the drive
So here I ask for your help, please.
Thanks
Motim

You can certainly delete everything on the drive and reformat it.

Try turning off autoplay AutoPlay - Turn On or Off in Windows 10

I find it is generally indexing and so I don't worry about. Other things (Task Manager, Resource Monitor, File Explorer etc) will also lock the drive and it isn't always obvious.

Worst case (if you know you aren't doing anything with the disk) you can download Sync.exe from Microsoft. Run that and you can then just unplug it anyway as it will make sure everything is written to the disk. I use it for my docking station as it does the same sometimes.

lx07 said:

You can certainly delete everything on the drive and reformat it.
Try turning off autoplay AutoPlay - Turn On or Off in Windows 10

Hello and thanks for the answer,
While more diging into the internet I found (in some answer) this program "USBDiskEjector (1.3.0.4).zip", as said it is portable.
And I am thinking this: Since the disk has not any data on, and I will not use the program installer on it, and if the small mentioned program fails, with the system's 'storage management' tool delete the whole partition, and reformat (NTFS) the disk.
I would like to have your opinion about that portable program (if you know)
Thanks again
Motim

I don't know the USBDiskEjector program but it looks perfectly reputable.

You can certainly format the disk whole disk NTFS - that is what I'd do.

I also get that message once in a while, but only on 1 of the 2 Win10 systems that I have and it occurs on any one of my many external USB drives. On the W10 Pro system, I never get that message no matter what software I run against it. On the W10 Home system, its intermittent. Some times I get that message and sometimes I don't. I have noticed that if I only read from the device, it happens every time. If some where along the line I write to that device, that message never happens. But that sequence will never fail on the W10 Pro system.

All settings for USB drives are set the same on both systems. I've monitored via "Process Monitor" and have verified that the file that was in use was closed, and there is nothing else accessing that drive. Since I can't find the problem, I have chalked it up to another infamous windows 10 bug.

Motim said:

I wanted to eject it, but right-click in the file explorer was not the option 'eject'....

No, you can't eject hard drives from File Explorer. This is normal behaviour because an external hard drive is not classed as 'removable media'. A USB memory stick is, but a USB HDD isn't.

The error message that you saw is caused by anything that may have the hard drive open - even a command prompt is sufficient. Task Manager can also prevent ejecting hard drives. It shows statistics for them on its 'Performance' tab same as it does for all other hard drives. Using Process Monitor may well have the same effect.

Close everything that may possibly be using the drive and try ejecting again.

Motim said:

After I overcome this problem, I want to re-partition the drive

You can format the existing partition from File Explorer. If you want to delete any existing partitions and create your own from scratch, use Disk Management.

Very rarely does Safely Remove Hardware work for me when I try to remove my external drives. If I know for sure that nothing is accessing the drives I just unplug them. Works for me but YMMV.

Hello,
This is still a problem.
In settings turned off auto play, on the usb drive removed that WD software and reformated the whole partition, even tried to stop AVG antivirus (unpluged the internet).
Stopped CCleaner, file explorer, even ran that small "usb disk ejector" - nothing worked.
In 'devices & printers' tried to remove the external drive - failed.
To disconnect the drive safely had to shut down the computer.
Is there something else to do ?
Answers will be appreciated.
Thanks
Motim