How do I eject the flash drive from an Officejet 8610 after scanning a file into it.

[dcollins_mac]

I used the front panel controls of my Officejet 8610 to scan an image into a flash drive plugged into the front panel of the 8610.

The 8610 recognized the presence of the drive just fine, and placed the scanned image on it as desired.

But for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to do a controlled ejection of the flash drive.  (I finally did a controlled power-down of the 8610 and removed the drive after the 8610 turned itself off.)

How do you do eject a flash drive from the front panel USB port?

[prabaa]

Hi,

Thanks for reporting the issue.

For Printer, you don't need to go for controlled eject. Just remove it (pull it out)  from the printer and there won't be any issue for printer or for your thump drive. You don't need to shut down the printer to do that.

It is easy as 1,2 3. 

Happy Printing

[AuntieEm]

@dcollins_mac

Thank you for your post on the hp.com forums regarding safely ejecting your USB flash drive. In our printers, to remove your USB flash drive, all you need to do is - remove the flash drive. There is really no other method needed. You will not harm the flash drive, printer or files.

Hope this helps.

[P1114]

I have been using this method to remove my flash drive, however after my last use, something happened and when I took the scans to a new computer the drive had to be reformatted, thus losing eveything stored. 

[dcollins_mac]

I thought this was resolved.  But more than a year later, a respondent seems to have discovered that a problem can occur if a device is removed without being ejected.

Of course there may be other factors.

Anybody from HP wanna weigh in on this?

[Beeem]

i know this is an old post, BUT...

the anwer does not address the problem that the HP manual and directions for their printer specifically say the USB should NOT be removed while the printer is still accessing it, ie the USB light is still flashing, OR damage  and data loss may result.

But HP provides no apparent way to safely remove the USB, or stop the printer accessing it before removing it. ERGO impossible situation!

I am not a computer expert. I buy a printer marketed to non-experts, so I read and trust the instructions. Which means i spend HOURS OF FRUSTRATION TRYING TO FIND HOW TO EJECT THIS THING SAFELY. 

Only to find here eventually that the instructions were wrong and it won't cause a problem anyway. Apparently. Maybe.

I have had several previous printers and have never struck one so ridiculously complex, convoluted, counter intuitive, cluncky and plain infuriating. After several weeks trying to get this thing even working, much less properly, I want to throw it out the nearest window. 'Easy as 123'   !!!???!!!   NOT with out a degree in computer technoloty.

And now i find I can't even trust the manual.

Not good enough HP.

[dcollins_mac · Accepted solution]

Beeem -

Thanks for taking the time to post on this old thread.  It still might be helpful to someone since it corrects information, from HP employees no less, that  I had marked as the correct solution.

Anyone reading this thread should note that the correct answer is to wait for the flash drive's 'in use' indicator to indicate 'not in use'.

In fact, since I posted my first inquiry in 2014, HP may have upgraded their documentation to warn people not to remove the flash drive while it's flashing.   Of course, some flash drives don't have an 'in use' indicator, so a prudent period of waiting, though still risky, might reduce the probability of failure.

I agree that flash drive removal is not optimally designed - the printer should give feedback (on it's display screen) to indicate the state of the USB connection.  That would give non-experts (almost everybody) the tool they need to safely protect their hardware and their data, regardless of any indicator on the USB device.

In your case, the instructions you read in the manual were correct.  Nothing wrong with those instructions (if your flash drive provides a means of detecting 'not in use').   And those instructions do in fact conflict with the post from HP employees prabaa & AntieEm (in 2014).  In fact it's possible that those posts gave poster P1114 (in 2015)  advice that led to the latter's loss of data.

I can't speak to the other problems you may be having with your HP printer.  But the warning their manual gives about removing the device, in lieu of P1114's experience, appears to be the right procedure.

I think you can trust the manual on this one.  Thanks for following up.

[Beeem]

Thank you  bdcollins_mac for replying, and for helping with my [obvious ] frustration.  🙂

The flash drive's indicator never stopped flashing,  which presumably means it remained in use by by the printer until forcibly removed. I searched everywhere on the printer and in the documentation for a way to stop the printer accessing the drive so I could remove it safely, without success.

So I can trust the manual, and the warning, but HP appear to have designed the printer without any way to make it disconect from the flash drive. So it is impossible to carry out the instructions on removal that they give.

I did lose the data on one of the scans I did; it came out blank. However I was able to repeat it. I made sure i had no other data on the flash drive before starting this process.

I wish computer product manufactures would realise that having 900 whizz bang features on a machine is worth nothing if it has not been designed or tested to be able to do the basics properly.

End of rant.    🙂      And thanks again for your input.

[Beeem]

Thankyou dcolins_mac for taking the time reply, and help with my [obvious ] frustration level. 🙂

The flash drive just never stopped flashing, which presumably means it never stopped being ‘in use’ by the printer.

(This is a good quality flash drive which has given no indication of any problems before or since using in the HP printer, so I don’t think it is the problem.)

So, even though I trust the warning in the manual, that doesn’t solve the problem because the machine appears to have been designed with no way to end the communication between the flash drive and the printer prior to removal of the drive. Or I couldn’t find any way in an hour of reading the manual and trying.

I did lose the data on one of the scans I did; it came out blank. However I was able to repeat it. I made sure i had no other data on the flash drive before starting this process. 🙂

I wish makers of computer equipment would realise that having 900 whizz bang features on a machine is worth nothing if it has not been designed and tested to do the basic functions easily and efficiently.

End of rant. Thanks again for your input dcolins_mac. 🙂

[dcollins_mac]

The problem you're seeing - failure of the printer to release the flash drive at all - is actually more serious - though still somewhat related to the fact that there's no way to manually command the printer to release the drive.  Even if there was, it might not matter .... whatever hw/sw glitch that caused the printer to fail to release the flash drive in the usual fashion might well refuse to honor a manual release command, even if it existed .... clearly the internal mechanism that automatically releases the drive was failing in your case.  It certainly would have been worth a try in your case to power down the printer, maybe even unplug it, then restart it, then see if the 'in use' indicator was still blinking.

Over my years of experience I have very (very) rarely experienced a computer failing to release a flash drive, and maybe even an auxilliary hard drive I had mounted manually.  I wasn't ever able to repeat the problem and a power cycle fixed it without hurting my data so I just chalked it up to 'magical hw/sw error' and moved on.

The problem you experienced is different enough from the reason that I originally started this thread that it might be worthwhile to start a new  2017 topic "Printer fails to release flash drive" if you have this problem again.  In the 3 years since I first started this topic, new versions of drivers may have acquired a new problem ... and maybe someone else has already seen what you experienced.