'Safely Remove Hardware'??

[BEagle]

I've never used the 'Safely Remove Hardware' tool in Windows XP before unplugging a USB stick. But I note that people are recommended to do so.

Is there really any need to use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' tool when unplugging USB sticks? I know it only takes about 10 sec to complete, but is it just overkill?

[hobie]

I've never used the 'Safely Remove Hardware' tool in Windows XP before unplugging a USB stick. But I note that people are recommended to do so.

Now I realize you may feel the time taken to do a proper usb disconnect is possibly going to ruin your social life Beag's, but it's only 10 seconds man!!!! :p


Even though USB devices are Plug & Play—that is, they're ready to go upon being plugged in—you shouldn't just unplug them. A USB port has current running through it, so the power jolt caused by unplugging a "hot" connection can corrupt data on a storage device, camera, or mp3 player.


Now waiting for the 10,000 posts saying "well it never happened to me!" ..... but one day, when it does, there will be crying and knashing of teeth .... :{

[welliewanger]

Hobie, you're absolutely right. Not gonna argue with that. The other thing that the ejection utility (or whatever it's called) does, is make sure that nothing's being written to the disk or read or anything like that. If a file is half way through being written and you unplug it, then the data is corrupted.

[BOFH]

knashing of teeth
that sounds to me like a combination of 'kicking' and 'gnashing'. Cool!

Window will chuck a wobbly when you least expect it - so unless you're copying funny movies or somesuch on it, it's best to offer a few seconds' prayer that all the data were written.

Having said that, I don't trust the things as far as Granny can throw them. If it's important, the data should go on at least three media.

You wouldn't believe how many people go halfway across the world with buggered data, don't check their files when they arrive, and then realise that their latest revision is sitting on a nice, cold hard disk at their origin. Fifteen minutes before a presentation :D .

BOFH

[shuttlebus]

Using the "eject" option ensures that the info you copied to the drive has in fact been written

Willie is nearly correct - in fact it is a "Windows" issue, rather than a hardware issue and dates from the days before USB sticks and the like.

Windows is programmed to hold back on using the write cache if something else is going on i.e printing a document etc. Therefore if you blindly pull the plug, there is no guarantee that the data has actually been written to the drive as the cache has not been cleared. If you are writing to a hard drive, it prevents system bottlenecks and "improves" performance, all without the user being aware or needing to intervene (until someone drops in a USB memory stick and then Microsoft's theory starts to fall apart).

Now, I never suffered this problem, right up until the point where it actually mattered - taking a presentation to a client:{ Luckily, I am also paranoid, so I had burnt said presnetation to CD.

However, now I always use the eject hardware option.

Regards,

Shuttlebus

[Feline]

As someone whose very livelyhood depends on transferring completed tests off student's computers onto a memory stick, I invariably unplug a memory stick before taking it out. Notwithstanding this, I still manage to occasionally "lose" files to corruption (three students' tests as recently as last week).

That could be down to a dodgy memory stick (I have now "retired" the stick I was using last week), but it could also be down to my impatience - sometimes XP is remarkably reluctant to "let go" of a memory stick - you need to ensure that it doesn't have any open files and/or folders, particularly if you have Windows Explorer open and anything on the memory stick selected.

You do, very specifically, need to unplug the stick if you should be using Windows NT (managed to lose 170 tests through not doing that), and to a lesser extent with Win 2000.

You also, very specifically, DO need to unplug external USB hard drives before removing them because Windows quite often seems to delay writes to an external hard drive. I have also discovered that with external drives that use an external power supply, when connecting them it is best to plug in the USB cable before you plug in the power cable. That seems a tad unintuitive to me, but doing it the other way round (power cable first, then USB cable) has occasionally resulted in the device being recognised as an "unknown USB device" without allocating it a drive letter. I must admit that this only seems to occur with Win 2000 and not with XP.

Bottom line is that I strongly think it is better to unplug a stick before removing it. And where possible, copy and paste to a memory stick rather than cut and paste. Convenient they are, but I don't trust 'em. And, BTW, right clicking on the drive letter and using the "eject" option very rarely works - click on the icon and unplug the device from there.

[Farmer 1]

I'm missing something here. To me, a memory stick is a short device, one end of which is a USB plug, and no other attachments. Could Feline please explain to me (gently) how to unplug it before removing it? Surely the two actions are one and the same thing?

The "Safely Remove Hardware" icon has disappeared from my System Tray, as has the volume icon. I can retrieve the latter, but only until the next shutdown, but I've no idea how to get the Remove Hardware icon back.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I'm not pinching your thread, BEagle, honest.

[Feline]

Ah Yes Farmer! Thought about that about a millisecond after I hit the "Post" key! By "Unplug" I mean clicking on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray. Sometimes this simply (gracefully) releases the stick, sometimes it generates a panel and you then have to "Stop" the device. By "Remove" I mean physically unplug the stick.

On my system, you only see the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon when you actually have a memory stick physically plugged in. I have noticed that XP often hides this icon - you have to click on the left arrow to uncover some of the icons.

I expanded my original comments to include External Hard Drives plugged into a USB port. Some of these (usually smaller ones using 2.5" technology) take their power from the USB port (and don't need an external power supply). Others (including the 3.5" ones I am currently using) need more power than is available from the USB port (which is, I think only 100ma) and therefore need power from an adapter.

Going to the Control Panel and clicking on "Eject" does NOT release a memory stick (I think that it only opens the drawer in thee case of a CD or DVD).

Sorry - hope that clears things up?

[Farmer 1]

Thanks, Feline. The Remove Hardware icon is not there, though, not even when I have a memory stick plugged in and working.

So, I don't have many options open to me.

[BOAC]

http://www.tech-recipes.com/windows_tips598.html
Check you do not have 'hide unused icons' ticked.

More here http://www.webuser.co.uk/forums/showflat.php?Number=251408&page=0 including a link to a 'restore icon' site.

[Golden Ticket]

Always use the remove icon now. If I plug my Playstation Portable into the PC to transfer music,videos etc. if I just unplug it it crashes the USB2 card and I have to reinstall the drivers, if I click on the remove hardware icon first there is no problem. Plugging and unplugging my usb stick doesn't cause this problem. So my answer would be maybe, sometimes.

[Conan the Librarian]

As USB is such a less than "Universal" solution, (see earlier posts in this forum) I would go for the safe removal, as opposed to pulling the plug - every time I can. Oddly, the removal icon seems to make up its own mind as to whether it appears in the taskbar. Certainly is not consistent, but Hey! This is a Microsoft machine...

Conan

[stickyb]

It also depends on what file system the device has been formatted with. Unpluging without using the windows command can cause you to loose space on the drive until you have run scandisk or the like, or will cause windows 2000/xp to run it automatically at next plug in.

[BEagle]

The question was about USB sticks, not about other types of external device.

However, the consensus seems to be to use the 'safely remove hardware' tool - even though no-one I know ever does so.

[Farmer 1]

Thank, BOAC. I've tried everything there, and no change.

I guess I'll have to manage without.

[Jhieminga]

AFAIK Win XP contains some bits of code that try to allow for users disconnecting USB sticks without using 'safely remove' first. In earlier Windows versions you should ALWAYS use the feature to prevent problems.

What this means is that with XP you may not have any problems for 99% of the time. If you are a user who is careful with unplugging devices, who waits for a few seconds for example to allow the write to finish (watching the LED light on the stick and waiting for it to stop blinking is certainly a good thing to do), then you may never encounter problems. Using 'safely remove' you will be sure every time that it goes without problems.

[hobie]

My own USB Flash drive instructions have the following warning (repeated twice!) ......

The USB Flash drive may still be working even after the operating system has confirmed a file operation

Using "Safely remove hardware" is a bit like wearing "Car safety belts" .... :\

[Conan the Librarian]

Using "Safely remove hardware" is a bit like wearing "Car safety belts" ....

Or maybe an even better analogy, a condom.

Conan

[hobie]

Or maybe an even better analogy, a condom.


Why didn't I think of that ..... :p

[Onan the Clumsy]

Or maybe an even better analogy, a condom.
Technically, I think that analogy would work better for setting the write-protect blip on a floppy disk :8

[hobie]

for those of us who don't wear seat belts ..... or practice un-safe sex .... or don't use safely remove hardware ....

you will probably get away with it some of the time .... :rolleyes:

you may even get away with it most of the time ..... :cool:

but you wont get away with it all of the time :{

try it and you will see what I mean ... :p

[Saab Dastard]

Beags, I have not personally encountered any problems with USB memory sticks, but I have had several with USB hard disks.

There is much less likely to be any write-back latency in a USB memory stick - being solid state it is nearly as fast to write to as main memory.

I don't know whether it is related or not, but I have seen many flash memory devices discarded as having become "unreliable" - I wonder if this has anything to do with premature ejection ;)

[Mac the Knife]

See

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/12/16/43890.aspx

and

http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/04/05/108205.aspx

:ok: