Device cannot be stopped now..

[Psychobert]

Have a couple of USB pen drives which I use for date storage. Ever since getting them, I frequently when stopping the device to remove it get the message 'this device cannot be stopped now, try again later'. Any idea what this is all about? Drivers are up to date, files and folders closed. I'm using XP Pro if thats relevant..

[JamieBeeston]

make sure you dont have the device open in Explorer / command prompt / anything open which is referencing / writing / reading from the device

99% of the time, this error simply means you have the device visible in an explorer window, and as such it cant be 'safely shut down'

[miniman]

I never stop any devices with XP - it seems to be fine. All other o/s complain when you pull out a "running" device but XP seems to handle it by itself.

[JamieBeeston]

miniman said:

I never stop any devices with XP - it seems to be fine. All other o/s complain when you pull out a "running" device but XP seems to handle it by itself.

It will handle it without much issue, its more the chance of you boinking the device you remove.

It depends if you have Write Caching enabled or not.

If you dont,then its not so much of a worry, as any writing is done in real time... however with it enabled, you get a much faster transfer rate to the device, however the system is still writing to the device 'behind the scenes' so when you yank it out,it might still be writing, and as such you may lose data.

thats why the option is there.

[obi]

Had this problem a lot with my usb pen when building servers for work, normally when the PC/server detects and installs the USB storage device for the first time. Once the PC /server has been rebooted the "stop device" works every time. Hope that helps...

[Psychobert]

JamieBeeston said:

It will handle it without much issue, its more the chance of you boinking the device you remove. It depends if you have Write Caching enabled or not. If you dont,then its not so much of a worry, as any writing is done in real time... however with it enabled, you get a much faster transfer rate to the device, however the system is still writing to the device 'behind the scenes' so when you yank it out,it might still be writing, and as such you may lose data. thats why the option is there.

That makes sense.. I think.. Doesn't ever seem to do any harm when I just yank the thing out, so I'll carry on doing that.