Problems ejecting USB on HP Pavilion 14-ce0501na

[DylanMurphy6789]

Hey all,

I'm using the laptop named above, but am having a minor USB problem that is making me a bit worried. A USB thumb drive of ine is spending a lot of time in the laptop, because I have a college assignment saved on it, along with a few other bits that I use with it (a Harvard referencing guide downloaded for my convienance, etc). Whenever I spend a significant amount of time using the data on the USB drive like this, I get an error message when trying to "safely eject hardware". While I'm aware that 99% of the time, it's fine  to just take it out as long as everything is closed, it doesn't bode well for the quality of the laptop, which I have only had since shortly after Christmas.

This does not happen with other computers that the USB stick has been plugged into like this, so I doubt it's the drive. I've tried the usual quick fixes, such as restarting Windows Explorer, but it makes no difference. It would be a massive pain to have to send it back, but a new laptop shouldn't have these, admittingly small, but glaring flaws. I wanted to ask if anyone knew a way to sort this out on my end so that I don't have to do this.

The attached screenshot isn't mine. It's taken from a YouTube video, but does show the same error I'm getting.

Many thanks in advance!

[WAWood]

@DylanMurphy6789 

I run into this issue ALL THE TIME -- and I wish I had a solution, as I have tried MANY different things to get around this problem -- which, like so many others, appears to be unique to Windows 10!

In my case, what generally seems to work is to "cold boot" the PC, that is turn the power completely off, let it sit 30 seconds or so, and then turn it back on.  After that, I don't get this popup -- at least, for a while.

The popup you are seeing is Windows' way of telling you that it is still writing to the USB stick and to wait until it is done to remove it.  Problem is, like so many other problems with Win10, it gets confused and just keeps saying this over and over.

What you can do, in your case, is power down the laptop and when it is off, simply unplug the USB stick. That will work because when Windows shut downs, it flushes all of its write queues, so it is then safe te remove the USB stick.

[DylanMurphy6789]

Thanks very much for getting in touch.

So it's an Windows problem then? Is there anything that is in my power to sort this out? It might be a small thin but I'm considering returning the laptop, because a laptop this new shouldn't have an issue with something like this.

[WAWood]

@DylanMurphy6789 

I'm not saying it's a Windows problem; I'm saying most likely, it's a Windows 10 problem -- as I run multiple OSs on my primary desktop and ONLY have this issue with Windows 10.

You can certainly return the PC if you want, but Win10 has lots of problems -- so there is a possibility that you will have the same issues with any other Win10 laptop.