Safe removal of device where to find. Safely Removing USB Devices in Windows
How to use USB drives correctly? This question worries almost all owners of such devices.
Some users believe that they can limit themselves to simply removing USB drives and avoid unnecessary manipulations with the mouse, i.e. don't resort to safe removal of flash drives. Is it really?
If you adhere to this opinion, sooner or later you may encounter two unpleasant things:
- Firstly, there is a possibility of losing valuable information contained on the flash drive.
- Secondly, the drive itself can be damaged and you don’t have to think about further work with it.
Data can be lost not only when removing the flash drive while copying or moving files, but also just like that. This sometimes comes as a complete surprise to many. It seems that no manipulations were performed, but the files and folders disappeared somewhere.
This situation especially occurs when using USB drives with the NTFS file system. For disks with this system, the OS creates a special area for storing copied data, i.e. Information is not written to the flash drive immediately. To avoid this situation, you must use “Safely Remove Hardware”.
Also, when simply (more precisely, dangerously) removing flash drives, an unexpected increased voltage pulse or simply a short circuit may occur. In this case, there is a high probability of damage to the electronic components of the drive; they simply burn out.
After the above, we come to the conclusion that it is necessary to safely remove the flash drive. It’s not for nothing that the operating system itself offers to carry out this manipulation, which takes a matter of seconds.
Using “Safely Remove Hardware” will help you keep your data and the drive itself safe and sound.
How to safely remove flash drives?
How to properly disconnect any external device for Windows XP, in particular a flash drive, is described in detail, with an analysis of “incomprehensible, strange” situations.
For Windows 10, can be used to safely remove an external device.
Below we will consider in general the safe removal of a flash drive for Windows 7, although there is no fundamental difference with Windows XP and Windows 10 in this matter.
First, close the program that the flash drive was paired with. Then click on the small triangle on the right side, when you hover over it with the mouse pointer you can see the inscription “Show hidden icons” (in the screenshot this triangle is indicated by the number 1):
Although it may well be that the “Safely Remove Hardware and Disks” icon (number 2) is located directly on the Taskbar. By the way, if no device is connected to the computer via the USB port, then you will not see this icon (No. 2 in the screenshot) due to the fact that the computer understands that, in fact, you have nothing to extract - “no judgment.”
So, in order to properly disconnect the flash drive, just after closing the program with which the flash drive was working, click on the “Safely remove devices and disks” icon, after which a window something like this will appear:
By clicking on “Remove Mass Storage Device”, we will see a message that “The equipment can be removed”:
After this, you can remove the flash drive from the USB port.
Everything said above about safely removing a flash drive applies not only to a flash drive, but also to any other device that is connected to a computer via a USB port.
There is an opinion that USB drives can be removed from the port only after the device has been safely removed using the operating system, otherwise both the flash drive and the port may burn out. Is it really? Why is it necessary? Safe removal of device?
Safe removal of the device is used to data protection, which you copy to or from a flash drive. The fact is that to increase the performance of your computer when working with removable storage devices, the operating system usually has data caching.
When caching is enabled, data is not written directly to disk, but first goes into the cache (an intermediate buffer in one of the RAM blocks). This allows you to speed up work with data, because the processor accesses RAM faster than the memory of an external drive. And recording to a removable drive is carried out only later (the so-called delayed write).
If you remove the flash drive from the port without performing a safe removal of the device, data loss may occur. This happens because in fact the data has not yet been written to the drive and is still in the cache. But you deprived the drive of power (this is exactly what happens when you pull out a flash drive), and the delayed recording did not occur.
When safely removed, the system “understands” that the drive will now be removed from the port, and completes a pending write. After this, you can safely remove the flash drive without fear that any data will be lost.
Can a flash drive burn out?, if you pull it out of the port without performing a safe removal of the device? In fact, this is a myth. The supply voltage of USB devices is not that high (only 5 V) to cause serious damage. In addition, this voltage is not controlled by software, but is inherent in the USB standard specification itself.
For a flash drive to burn out, you need a strong voltage drop or surge or a short circuit. It is clear that simply pulling the flash drive out of the port without safely removing it is incapable of causing such a “cataclysm.” Usually the fault lies with a faulty power supply, a broken connector, conductive debris stuck in the port, or a discharge of static electricity, and Safe removal of the device has nothing to do with it.
This fact can be confirmed by the fact that In the latest versions of Windows, when you safely remove the flash drive, the power supplied to the device is not turned off. It was disabled in Windows XP, but in Windows Vista and Windows 7, power is turned off only when the device is pulled out of the port - safe removal does not affect the power in any way. In this case, it absolutely does not matter how the device loses power, nothing will happen to it anyway.
So the only danger that awaits you if you neglect safe extraction is data loss. If you regularly forget to safely remove your device but are concerned about the safety of your data, you can disable caching on the system. Copying data may become a little slower, but it will be safe (of course, if you do not remove the flash drive during the copying process).
To disable caching, insert the USB flash drive into the port, go to Control Panel (Start - Control Panel) and select Device Manager. Click on the triangle next to Disk devices, find your flash drive and double-click on it.
In the window that opens, go to the Policy tab. Select the Quick Delete option and click OK. In fact, when you quickly delete, caching is not disabled at all - Windows uses the so-called end-to-end caching, it allows the device to handle write commands as if there was no cache.
In Quick Removal mode, the flash drive can be removed without safely removing the device. But this only applies to cases where the data has already been copied! If you unplug the flash drive in the middle of the copying process, it will not save the data.
So, safely removing the device in Windows is only necessary to secure data when caching is enabled. It does not affect the safety of your flash drive in any way; if it burns out, the reason should not be looked for here.
Today, digital gadgets are an integral part of our lives. There are fewer and fewer people who do not have a computer, laptop or tablet, and it is difficult to imagine studying at school and university without an electronic assistant. And, along with PCs, flash drives - tiny storage devices for huge amounts of information - are of great importance. Each of us knows how many documents, music and films such a device can hold, but few people think about its proper operation.
Along with the basic rules - do not get it wet, do not drop it, etc., there is one very important point - correctly remove it from the computer after finishing work. This is the key to the safety of files on the flash drive and its long operation. If you are used to pulling out the device without bothering with additional operations, you risk one day being left without it and the saved recordings.
How to properly remove a flash drive from a computer?
Before you remove the drive, make sure you have finished working with the files on it. Documents and folders must be closed, otherwise the work will not be completed. This, in turn, can lead to data loss, malfunction of the removable disk, and even “broken” files that cannot be recovered.
After you have saved and closed all the files, you need to properly remove the flash drive. There are three ways to do this.
First way
1. On the desktop or in the “Start” menu, find the “My Computer” shortcut. Click on it 2 times.
2. Having entered “My Computer”, we will see the system drives “C”, “D”, and below that a removable disk should appear - a flash drive. Different devices usually have different names - "I", "E", "G".
3 . Place the cursor over the removable disk shortcut and right-click on it once.
4. In the drop-down menu, select “Extract”. Right-click once. After a couple of seconds, the indicator light on the flash drive will light up - this means that data is being saved.
5. When the job is complete, a message will appear in the lower right corner of the screen indicating that the device can be removed. The removable disk icon will disappear. After this, the flash drive can be removed.
Second way
1 . When you insert a flash drive into a computer connector, the following icon appears in the lower right corner of the toolbar:
2. If you don't see it, it's hidden - perhaps due to the large number of icons on the panel. Then there is probably an arrow like this:
3. To see hidden icons, hover the cursor over this arrow, click on it once with the left button and in the pop-up window we see the icon we need.
4. To remove it safely, hover the cursor over this icon and right-click on it once.
5. In the drop-down menu, select “Extract Flash Voyager”.
6. After a couple of seconds, the indicator light on the flash drive will light up and a window will appear indicating that the device can be removed.
7. The flash drive can be removed.
Third way
If the first two methods are standard and do not require additional programs, then the third method requires the installation of additional software. This is the USB SafelyRemove program - a shareware program, one of the functions of which is to detect all USB devices connected to the PC. To remove a flash drive using this program:
1. We find the shortcut for this program in the bottom toolbar - there we looked for the removable disk icon when using the second method. The shortcut for this program is a green arrow.
2 . To extract, hover the cursor over the program shortcut - a window appears with a list of all detected USB devices.
In fact, I always remove the flash drive or external drive anyway, through safe removal of devices, but the standard program infuriates me with its sluggishness... And this program will also prevent autorun from getting in...
Why do you need to safely remove devices?
In fact, the topic is quite popular, both among beginners and among professionals... There is a lot of controversy, but now I will tell you the theory and practice.
1. What people say The flash drive may burn out, this is not entirely realistic, because the voltage supplied is small, but still I burned the flash drive when I pulled it out when booting the computer, but I guess it was a defect, it didn’t last that long... But now I always remove it safely, or wait until the computer turns off. It’s not up to me to decide what to do, my job is to advise... But haste does not lead to anything good, and the majority will agree with this.
2. Now more about the real thing. Data may be lost. This is a fact, since before writing, the data is transferred to the cache and then to the flash drive. It’s one thing that something won’t be copied, or even by accident something might get damaged.
Here are two main reasons why you should remove external media.
All do not like safely remove devices just because it's long. I agree, the standard program annoys me and that’s why we’ll get rid of this torment :)
The program is provided free of charge, only some of its functions are paid, but we will not need them...
Download a free program for safely removing devices here:
Interface Antirun programs simple to the point of madness. The program for safely removing devices is also located in the panel next to the clock.
When a new device appears on the computer, the program will prompt you to perform an action.
This is done so that a virus does not get into the computer, also for convenience, you can immediately see how much free space is on the flash drive or how much it is occupied.
In the list you can open the drive, protect it from viruses(this is a paid service), well, it is not necessary if you have already chosen for yourself.
Well, either you changed your mind about opening the device or made a mistake, you can immediately safely remove the device.
Program settings for safely removing devices
Right-click on the program and select settings.
Now let's set up the program for even greater comfort.
Although there are not many settings in the program for safely removing devices, there are still some that will add convenience to you. 
The settings include:
Autorun— if you like the program, check the box, it will launch when loading.
Don't show dialog if autorun is not detected— if there is no autorun.ini file on the flash drive, then you don’t have to show the dialog. We install it if you want to constantly access my computer.
Close the dialog after selecting an action— put a checkmark so that after you click on the program, the selection dialog disappears.
Disable startup of all devices— if you don’t need it or you constantly have viruses on your media, check the box.
Notify about beta versions— the program will notify you about program updates that may still have errors.
AND Interface language- I think it’s clear)
Safely Removing Devices
Left-click on the icon and select the device that needs to be removed. That's it, you have successfully mastered program for safely removing devices 🙂
Hello dear friends. Today I decided to touch on another sacred topic from the world of computer technology, namely, safely removing a device. Now we will try to figure out whether it is really necessary to use safe removal, and what could happen if you just remove the flash drive from the computer.
It's interesting to observe different people and how they approach the safe removal of USB devices. Let me say, perhaps getting ahead of myself, that I almost never use safe removal of flash drives.
I stick to the phrase:
“Life is too short to waste it on safely removing a flash drive”
And most likely, I will regret it someday, having lost the information, although it seems to me that this is almost impossible. I safely remove flash drives only from those who are very fanatical about this, so as not to traumatize their psyche :).
Let's now figure out what can happen to a flash drive if you simply pull it out of the computer? Well, many people think that the USB drive will fail. And for obvious reasons, they don’t want to take risks, let’s figure it out in order.
Can a flash drive burn out if you don't use safe eject?
Can not. Why? Yes, because flash drives most often burn from a bad computer power supply, or from bad connectors. You see, a stable voltage is always supplied to the USB drive, and even when you use safe removal, the system simply stops transmitting and reading information from the flash drive, and the power does not turn off. If I'm not mistaken, the power was turned off only in Windows XP.
So it’s safe to remove the flash drive, just to prevent it from burning out, there’s no point.
Another issue is the loss of information.
I’ll tell you this: if you don’t pull out the flash drive at the moment when the process of writing or reading files is in progress, then it will be difficult to lose something. There is such a feature as data caching, when data is written to the device in the background, that is, when the copying process is not in progress. But again, I speak from my own experience, with more than one year of active use of flash drives, there have been no problems with loss of information.
But if you look from the other side, if such a function exists, if it was invented, then it means it is needed for something and there is no need to ignore it.
Well, if you read this article and just found out that there is such a function, but don’t know how to use it, then I’ll show you.
When a flash drive is connected, the following icon appears in the tray (lower right corner):
Just click on this icon with the mouse and select Eject “Your flash drive”.
