Backup USB Drive Eject Issue

[bikeman25]

Hello All

 

Finished Backup of drives on this system with Macrium Reflect Home 8,    now it says drive still in use, and won't eject, was gonna do the Secondary Gaming Laptop backup next today.      

 

Advice?  Suggestions?  nothing should be writing to the drive now

 

[Fleet Command]

If you've activated the Image Guardian feature of Macrium Reflect, it'll retain open handles on your removable drive, so as to prevent any other software (especially malicious software) from tampering with your backups. These handles effectively prevent you from removing your drive. However, this feature is not necessary for removable drives. Removing the drive automatically protects the backup from tampering. So, feel free to disable Image Guardian or tell it to exclude your removable media from protection.

 

Image Guardian is not the only thing that can prevent a drive from being ejected. However, diagnosing this issue could take a while. The quickest remedy is to log out, then remove your drive. Doing so closes all open apps, hence, you'll know for sure that nothing is using your removable media. (In a multi-user scenario, all users must log out.) If you are paranoid, you can restart your PC and remove your drive.

[bikeman25]

Ok Wil log out, then remove the drive as suggested

 

Do use Image Guardian, didn't think of that might've been preventing its removeable til now.       Only user on this PC,  PC Admin local account was already signed out,   Standard user myself is only account signed in.    

 

Did not know if i needed Image Guardian with Reflect or Not when installed it on the systems, so just decided to go ahead and install it with it activated on both Desktop and Secondary Gaming Laptop machine

 

Now after completely log out, can then complete the system image backup on Secondary Gaming Laptop shortly whenever i get to that task

 

 

 

 

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

 

Sometimes you may have to issue the drive eject command a second time after 30-45 seconds or so in order for it to be processed. 

 

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

 

[bikeman25]

Yeah Normally since Clean Installing Windows 11 on Main Desktop,  Eject feature for the USB drives usually doesn't have too many issues, sometimes the drives eject fine, and sometimes it does can't eject drive is in use message,  usually Im like it's not even anything being written to it or read now.     But eventually it usually works for most part with most of the external drives

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I'll be honest, I haven't "ejected" a drive for "safe removal" since the Vista days.

 

Quick removal has been plenty stable in my experience. Once things are done transferring/running I just pull my drive and have never had an issue.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 30/11/2021 at 11:49, Brandon H said:

I'll be honest, I haven't "ejected" a drive for "safe removal" since the Vista days.

 

Quick removal has been plenty stable in my experience. Once things are done transferring/running I just pull my drive and have never had an issue.

Me too. As long as it isn't blinking, it's safe to be removed.

[cork1958]

On 30/11/2021 at 12:49, Brandon H said:

I'll be honest, I haven't "ejected" a drive for "safe removal" since the Vista days.

 

Quick removal has been plenty stable in my experience. Once things are done transferring/running I just pull my drive and have never had an issue.

 

On 30/11/2021 at 13:03, Mindovermaster said:

Me too. As long as it isn't blinking, it's safe to be removed.

I have done it that way before but had 1 drive full of music get ruined. Couldn't find a way to get around the disc needs to be formatted message after that.

 

I eject drives again now just to be double sure it's done doing it's thing.

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 30/11/2021 at 12:41, cork1958 said:

 

I have done it that way before but had 1 drive full of music get ruined. Couldn't find a way to get around the disc needs to be formatted message after that.

 

I eject drives again now just to be double sure it's done doing it's thing.

did you run a chkdsk /f on the drive?

[bikeman25]

Yeah learning its safe to do most of the time, just to Remove it if no light blinking on the drives.

 

i'd be in a world of hurt though if the Backup Drive (Seagate 8TB)  went bad, as it would probably takes hours to run a chkdsk /f on that drive being external lol and usb 3.0

 

I know Seagate tools extended long disk test took 19 hours the times i used that lol

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 30/11/2021 at 12:57, bikeman25 said:

Yeah learning its safe to do most of the time, just to Remove it if no light blinking on the drives.

 

i'd be in a world of hurt though if the Backup Drive (Seagate 8TB)  went bad, as it would probably takes hours to run a chkdsk /f on that drive being external lol and usb 3.0

 

I know Seagate tools extended long disk test took 19 hours the times i used that lol

 

may be worth adding a 2nd backup drive then for parity in case one fails.

 

or better long term plan, switch over to a NAS for backups if you're storing that much. much better than manually backing up to an external drive and a RAID setup will give good parity/recovery if drives fail.

something to save up for if you can't currently afford and will be completely worth it for such large backups.

[bikeman25]

 Mainly System backup Images with Macirum Reflect weekly, usually Differential weekly, and Full One Monthly is my typical backup plan.      Checks out NAS prices for Christmas or Birthday and goes from there.      As know risky using the one 8tb to backup on for all systems in household.    

 

Hopefully able to afford a NAS in the future, and then pick a great spot to put it, run another ethernet wire for the device, and such.    

 

 

[cork1958]

On 30/11/2021 at 13:46, warwagon said:

did you run a chkdsk /f on the drive?

First thing I did. Don't know what happened to that stupid thing, but after trying several different things on it, I just left it setting for I don't know how long. Tried using it on one of my Linux machines and it worked just fine. Still had my tunes on it even. Never did format it.

 

One of the weirdest things I've ever seen.  Believe me, I've created my own weird things on computers too! :)

[Fleet Command]

On 30/11/2021 at 22:16, warwagon said:

did you run a chkdsk /f on the drive?

ChkDsk /f belongs to the dark ages. On Windows 8 and later, it is either ChkDsk /scan or the Repair-Volume -Scan.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 30/11/2021 at 14:17, cork1958 said:

First thing I did. Don't know what happened to that stupid thing, but after trying several different things on it, I just left it setting for I don't know how long. Tried using it on one of my Linux machines and it worked just fine. Still had my tunes on it even. Never did format it.

 

One of the weirdest things I've ever seen.  Believe me, I've created my own weird things on computers too!

was actually coming into this thread to say this may have worked. the NTFS/FAT drivers for Linux are quite a bit different compared to Windows and you often can still access a drive Windows is struggling to read due to minor corruption in the formatting table.

 

used this method to recover things off a failing USB drive back in the XP days.

[bikeman25]

I may have to check out Linux somehow to recover a Failing USB Stick, be easier if i had a DVD writer on this system these days probably to do that,  unless theres someway WIndows 11 Pro can,  as i got 1 USB stick that Windows just refuses to read anymore for some reason

 

Probably would use Ubuntu as sorta familair with that one a tiny bit if i did do that at some point

 

Except No DVD Writer on Either Laptop or Desktop lol,  Cheap $12.99 one i bought off Amazon come to find out won't even burn discs, but will play them

 

((buying a newer dvd writer if can at Christmas lol or Birthday depending on what i can afford then))

 

 

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

do you have any extra spare USB drives? no one really burns DVDs for linux live-cd environments anymore since it's so easy to do with a USB drive.

 

Rufus will be the easiest tool for you to put linux on a USB. It's a lovely tool

 

https://rufus.ie/en/

[bikeman25]

Should have some extra Flash drives pretty sure,  2 that won't read on any WIndows Machine, but i got alot of others that do work 

 

So will check that out for sure then, and maybe be able to recover the files off the 2 that don't work in Windows lol

 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

On 01/12/2021 at 17:20, bikeman25 said:

Should have some extra Flash drives pretty sure,  2 that won't read on any WIndows Machine, but i got alot of others that do work 

 

So will check that out for sure then, and maybe be able to recover the files off the 2 that don't work in Windows lol

 

Linux could maybe read it

[bikeman25]

Yeah gonna give Linux a shot someway soon here, either with the Flash drive or something, and see if can read those 2 that don't work

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 01/12/2021 at 20:06, bikeman25 said:

Yeah gonna give Linux a shot someway soon here, either with the Flash drive or something, and see if can read those 2 that don't work

 

If you ever give up on getting the files back and just want a working flash drive, give GRC's init disk a try. Apparently, it brings flash drives back from the dead, if it just has a really messed up file system. It's a Windows app. No installation required.

 

 

https://www.grc.com/initdisk.htm

 

It's got the most ingenus drive selection ever. Instead of being afraid you select the wrong drive, it will only detect a newly plugged in drive. It asks you either plug in or unplug and plug back in the drive you want to use. BRILLIANT!

[bikeman25]

Thank You, Thank You

 

That Program got it ability to read that flash drive that wasn't working at all before,  now can finally recover the bit of files on it

 

Then reformat it and hopefully continues to work for less important files,not sure i'd store important ones on as it didn't work for months lol til now

 

2 of 2  Not working Flash drives, successfully seen by that little program,  1st had some recoverable files,  2nd none, nuked it with the little program, and both recognized fine by Windows Now

 

Extremely Happy

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by bikeman25

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 01/12/2021 at 20:50, warwagon said:

If you ever give up on getting the files back and just want a working flash drive, give GRC's init disk a try. Apparently, it brings flash drives back from the dead, if it just has a really messed up file system. It's a Windows app. No installation required.

 

 

https://www.grc.com/initdisk.htm

 

It's got the most ingenus drive selection ever. Instead of being afraid you select the wrong drive, it will only detect a newly plugged in drive. It asks you either plug in or unplug and plug back in the drive you want to use. BRILLIANT!

wow never heard of this tool. definitely adding it to my arsenal in case I ever need it  

[bikeman25]

Yes it was able to read those with Initdisk just fine, and recovered old files off the one,  and other one was blank.       USB ejecting working better lately most of the time thus far the times i had to eject drives.