unable to eject the external storage device

[sadie270]

Receiving error message when trying to eject my external storage device which  says it is currently in use but it is not. I have shut down and restarted which did not solve problem. My understanding is that if I just remove the USB without ejecting it, I may corrupt the device with chance of loosing what is stored on it

[WAWood]

@sadie270 

What you fear was a very real issue with older versions of Windows, but not with Win10.

The fear was because writing to external drives was buffered and delayed and if you turned off the external device before the write pass was done, you risked corrupting the file system.

That's not the case with recent versions of Win10, but if you want to be careful then do the following:

1) Turn off the PC but leave the external storage connected

2) Turn on the PC with the external storage connected

3) Wait 5 minutes and turn off the external storage.  Since you did not do any saving to it, there will be no write passed to worry about.

[sadie270]

Thank you so much for your quick response. I had previously done a "restart" with drive still connected but it didn't work.  Would it make a difference with a "shut down" instead of just "restart"?  I also read that in Windows 10, the "safe removal" notice isn't necessary and USB can just be removed. Does that seem like a viable option, also?