Forced restore Windows image after not properly ejecting drives

tfwul · 14 Sep 2018

I need to restore Windows after not properly ejecting external USB drives before shutting down.

Have had this issue a few times in the past already:before shutting down Windows 10, it is obvious that one needs to properly 'eject external drives' by rightclicking taskbar external drive button.

However, one may be in hurry or for whatever other reason simply forget to do so.
Windows is then powered down with 'connected' external drives.
This sometimes leads to the situation that Windows hangs at the 'Welcome' screen.

Rebooting 4, 5 times and waiting for minutes to see what will happen, all without success.
Also rebooting with connected drives fails.

In the end there is no alternative but to restore the latest image and the rest that comes with it, like updating Windows and installing recent software. Quite frustrating.

Against my expectation, it seems that Windows itself, whilst shutting down, does not perform a proper eject-task. Neither warns me to take action before proceeding: after all, it detects the shut down is started and it detects running external drives.

Question:Whilst admitting that I did not pay attention to properly ejecting the drives (and confessing that it is my error only), I wonder whether there is any solution for this issue.

Thanks.

(Correction: the original text was reading 'that I paid' which was the opposite of what I meant to write and may lead to some confusion. Have corrected this to 'did not pay')

Kari · 14 Sep 2018

tfwul said:

Question:Whilst admitting that I paid attention to properly ejecting the drives (and confessing that it is my error only), I wonder whether there is any solution for this issue.

I do not believe this is your mistake, in my opinion you shouldn't blame yourself. There shouldn't be need to eject external drives before shutting down, for instance I have never done it. I just shut down, all external drives sometimes even USB flash drives connected, then when booted up again, everything works.

There must be some other underlying issue causing this for you.

Kari

tfwul · 14 Sep 2018

Kari said:

I do not believe this is your mistake, in my opinion you shouldn't blame yourself. There shouldn't be need to eject external drives before shutting down, for instance I have never done it. I just shut down, all external drives sometimes even USB flash drives connected, then when booted up again, everything works.

There must be some other underlying issue causing this for you.
Kari

If my memory serves me well, indeed, I admit, it happened a few times that the drives were up and running again, same as with you. I praise myself lucky then...phew!

I wasn't thinking of it, but whilst writing this reply, I wonder .. could it have something to do with the drives turning into some kind of sleep status after a while?

It is a 'long shot', I don't know.

Maybe when they are in sleepmode, Windows doesn't see the drives as active(?) and when launching Windows might expect some inactive drives that aren't there (they were switched off when rebooting) and Windows ends in endlessly trying to connect drives.
Really, I have no idea.

Fact is: when discovering that I have forgotten to switch the drive off (powerbutton) after shutting down Windows, I am crossing my fingers, toes, arms, whatever, hoping that Windows will indeed launch correctly, instead of hanging.

Kari · 14 Sep 2018

Check if you have USB selective suspend enabled. If yes, disable it:

Forced restore Windows image after not properly ejecting drives-image.png

(Click to enlarge.)

Kari