Hi,

When ever I plan to unplug the said external drives from windows 7 pro, get a message saying that Windows cannot stop because the device is still in use, and to clase all applications. But all applications are already closed. The Task Manager shows no applications are open.

What is the solutions to this? just yank it or shut down the machine?

Please help

Dave

As I explained in your previous thread:

passport-external-drive-bad-sector-t21476.html

my experience of that error message is that Windows believes the drive is still being accessed. Specifically a process (not necessarily a visible application, but it could be a Windows service or other background process which is not listed in the Task Manager) has an open file handle to the drive or a file on the drive.

This is a Windows sys admin challenge, to find the cause on your specific PC, and so I expect you'll find better sources of Windows support elsewhere. Personally, I'd start by using the SysInternals "Handle" utility to look at the list of open file handles listed by process (PID), but I'm not offering to support that utility remotely.

I appreciate that Vulcan.

What do you say I just shut down the machine? would it harm the Ex-HDD?

If I am to ask an unrelated question from you, is it safe to place the external hard drive close to a PC speaker? ( logitec PC speakers) would it hard the hdd?

Thank you,

D