OS build 22621.2134 22H2
Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click
it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
That option is no longer displayed.
It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.

On 9/5/2023 3:52 PM, bilsch01 wrote:
> OS build 22621.2134   22H2
> Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
> That option is no longer displayed.
> It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
>  But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.
>

Eject may have been removed for devices with FAT32 partitions.

Eject should still be there for devices with NTFS partitions.
Those can have a cache, and the cache needs a flush() call to make it safe.
That's what Safety Remove does for NTFS. This assumes the user
has not been fooling around and changed the default behavior for NTFS.

That is for USB devices.

But other devices have eject capability, such as "HotPlug" SATA
or ESATA devices. Such devices may show as "Portable Device" in
Device Manager. On enthusiast motherboards, there is a setting
in the BIOS for the ports, to make them HotPlug capable. The BIOS
default may be to disable HotPlug, to avoid "confusion" at the
desktop level.

Even if the C: drive is on a HotPlug SATA port, the Safely Remove dialog
will not allow C: and its storage device, to be ejected :-)
As tempting as that may be.

If an Eject fails to work, on a modern Windows, you may see
a notification with some details that will help you resolve the issue.
Older OSes, left it to the user to figure out.

Paul

bilsch01 <usenet@writer.com> wrote:

> OS build 22621.2134 22H2
> Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click
> it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
> That option is no longer displayed.
> It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
> But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.

In File Manager, right-click on the USB drive. Look at Properties.
Click on the Hardware tab. Stupidly you have to select the drive again,
and click on Properties again. Click on Change Settings (although you
won't be changing anything). Under the Policies tab, which option is
enabled?

Enable write caching on the device

Might be easier to go into Device Manager (devmgmt.msc), go under Disk
Drives, and right-click on the drive to select Properties to see the
Policies tab.

If enabled, you need to eject the device before unpowering it to ensure
any pending writes in the Windows buffers get flushed (written to the
drive). If disable, write caching is not enabled which means writes do
not pend, but are written immediately. However, even with Windows write
caching disabled, the drive itself may have a buffer having pending
writes.

For USB-attached drives, the policies are:

Quick Removal (default)
Better performance

Better performance means caching is enabled, and you must eject before
unplugging to flush the Windows cache to complete the pending writes on
the drive. Quick Removal means there is no caching, so no pending
writes. Writes are immediately commited on the drive. Since Quick
Removal is selected by default for USB-attached drives, you don't need
to eject before removal.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:01:17 -0400, Paul wrote:
> Eject may have been removed for devices with FAT32 partitions.

My USB stick is formatted FAT32, but it still offers Eject when I
right-click it in File Explorer.

> Eject should still be there for devices with NTFS partitions.

My 2 TB external hard drive doesn't have an Eject option when I
right-click. But when I navigated through Properties » Hardware »
Policies, I saw that it's set for quick removal, so no Eject is as
expected. On the other hand, that drive _is_ in the list in the
Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray.

I don't recall whether I set Quick Removal myself or it was just the
default, but I haven't noticed any performance issues so I'll leave
it that way.

I use USB Disk Ejector to eject USB stick and external hard drive in
a batch program.
<https://github.com/bgbennyboy/USB-Disk-Ejector>
I suppose I don't need to eject that external HD, but it doesn't seem
to do any harm, and the program does make the external drive
disappear from File Explorer and from the Safely Remove Hardware in
the system tray.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

My apologies. I didn't pay attention to which group I was in. (I have
one Win 11 and one Win 10 computer, so I read both.) I was on Windows
10 when I made these tests, so they may not apply to Windows 11. In
penance, I'll try the same things there and report back.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 15:29:09 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
>
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:01:17 -0400, Paul wrote:
> > Eject may have been removed for devices with FAT32 partitions.
>
> My USB stick is formatted FAT32, but it still offers Eject when I
> right-click it in File Explorer.
>
> > Eject should still be there for devices with NTFS partitions.
>
> My 2 TB external hard drive doesn't have an Eject option when I
> right-click. But when I navigated through Properties » Hardware »
> Policies, I saw that it's set for quick removal, so no Eject is as
> expected. On the other hand, that drive _is_ in the list in the
> Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray.
>
> I don't recall whether I set Quick Removal myself or it was just the
> default, but I haven't noticed any performance issues so I'll leave
> it that way.
>
> I use USB Disk Ejector to eject USB stick and external hard drive in
> a batch program.
> <https://github.com/bgbennyboy/USB-Disk-Ejector>
> I suppose I don't need to eject that external HD, but it doesn't seem
> to do any harm, and the program does make the external drive
> disappear from File Explorer and from the Safely Remove Hardware in
> the system tray.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Build 22621.2134 Win 11 22H2, and 19044.3086 Win 10 21H2

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:01:17 -0400, Paul wrote:
> Eject may have been removed for devices with FAT32 partitions.

My USB stick is formatted FAT32, but it still offers Eject when I
right-click it in File Explorer.

True in both my Windows 10 and 11.

> Eject should still be there for devices with NTFS partitions.

My 2 TB external hard drive doesn't have an Eject option when I
right-click. But when I navigated through Properties » Hardware »
Policies, I saw that it's set for quick removal, so no Eject is as
expected. On the other hand, that drive _is_ in the list in the
Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray.

True in both my Windows 10 and 11.

I don't recall whether I set Quick Removal myself or it was just the
default, but I haven't noticed any performance issues so I'll leave
it that way.

I use USB Disk Ejector to eject USB stick and external hard drive in
a batch program.
<https://github.com/bgbennyboy/USB-Disk-Ejector>
I suppose I don't need to eject that external HD, but it doesn't seem
to do any harm, and the program does make the external drive
disappear from File Explorer and from the Safely Remove Hardware in
the system tray.

True in both my Windows 10 and 11.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On 2023-09-05 18:51, Stan Brown wrote:
> Build 22621.2134 Win 11 22H2, and 19044.3086 Win 10 21H2
>
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 16:01:17 -0400, Paul wrote:
>> Eject may have been removed for devices with FAT32 partitions.
>
> My USB stick is formatted FAT32, but it still offers Eject when I
> right-click it in File Explorer.

It might depend on having a write cache or not. I seem to remember there
was a setting for that.

>
> True in both my Windows 10 and 11.
>
>> Eject should still be there for devices with NTFS partitions.
>
> My 2 TB external hard drive doesn't have an Eject option when I
> right-click. But when I navigated through Properties » Hardware »
> Policies, I saw that it's set for quick removal, so no Eject is as
> expected. On the other hand, that drive _is_ in the list in the
> Safely Remove Hardware icon in the system tray.
>
> True in both my Windows 10 and 11.
>
> I don't recall whether I set Quick Removal myself or it was just the
> default, but I haven't noticed any performance issues so I'll leave
> it that way.

Ah! That might be the setting.

>
> I use USB Disk Ejector to eject USB stick and external hard drive in
> a batch program.
> <https://github.com/bgbennyboy/USB-Disk-Ejector>
> I suppose I don't need to eject that external HD, but it doesn't seem
> to do any harm, and the program does make the external drive
> disappear from File Explorer and from the Safely Remove Hardware in
> the system tray.
>
>
> True in both my Windows 10 and 11.
>

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.

On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 12:52:40 -0700, bilsch01 wrote:

> option to EJECT external HD no longer available

> OS build 22621.2134 22H2
> Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click
> it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
> That option is no longer displayed.
> It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
> But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.

OS Build 22631.2262 23H2
The option to eject is still available in the 'tray'.
I have just tried this. See this screen-shot:
<http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=26_ud80ui__win-11-eject-external-hdd.png>

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox

“𝘿𝙤𝙣'𝙩 𝙋𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙘.”
― 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗹𝗮𝘀 𝗔𝗱𝗮𝗺𝘀, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘩𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘹𝘺

On 9/6/2023 12:36 AM, Ralph Fox wrote:
> On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 12:52:40 -0700, bilsch01 wrote:
>
>> option to EJECT external HD no longer available
>
>> OS build 22621.2134 22H2
>> Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click
>> it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
>> That option is no longer displayed.
>> It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
>> But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.
>
>
> OS Build 22631.2262 23H2
> The option to eject is still available in the 'tray'.
> I have just tried this. See this screen-shot:
> <http://img4.imagetitan.com/img.php?image=26_ud80ui__win-11-eject-external-hdd.png>

What bilsch01 is noting, is a real change.

At one time, Safely Remove uniformly treated removable media.
It treated FAT32 and NTFS the same. The advantage of this
approach, is the user does not have to bother their pretty head,
about "intricate details of device content". Just use the bloody
interface, as an "Eject" kind of feature. Whether it was technically
needed or not. Now, I liked that behavior. If you train people
to "use Safely Remove always", then much less need be said about
the Computer Science issues.

The newer functionality, assumes the user is a power user,
and has Stan's level of understanding of the intricacies.
Thus, Stan understands when his bloody USB stick is missing
from the Safely Remove thing, why that has happened.

I do not like this "improvement", because it assumes all the
users have Computer Science degrees and that the users care
about "whether they changed the preference for the device, for quick removal".

Interface designs are supposed to be "Discover-able". The old way
met the requirement, that the user just used the control, and
"it took care of the details". It did nothing for the FAT32 device.
It issued flush() for the NTFS partitions (one at a time).
Once everything was in the same state, the stick could be removed.
flush() ensures all the data is at rest and has gone-to-bed on the stick.

*******

Some sticks won't Safely Remove, because Macrium has been using TXF on them.
And even after Macrium has exited, TXF is still asserted. but
that is not seen uniformly by everyone. Only some people see that happen.
You can use Disk Management and change the device status to "Offline"
and then it can be unplugged. "Offline" defeats TXF. The next time
you plug in the device ? Go back to Disk Management and set it "Online" (grrr).

These are not the appliances we had hoped for. Look at all
the Trivial Pursuit stuff we learned.

Paul

bilsch01 <usenet@writer.com> wrote:
> OS build 22621.2134 22H2
> Used to be when you had external USB drive connected and you right-click
> it in File Manager, you see an option to EJECT the drive.
> That option is no longer displayed.
> It was always a good feeling to know it was safe to unplug the drive.
> But I guess that was just for stupid people like me.

AFAIK/AFAIR, for an external USB *drive* - i.e. a HDD (or SSD) -
'Eject' was never an option in (Windows) File Explorer.

It was only available (in File Explorer) for things like USB
memory-sticks, (SD etc.) memory cards, etc..

For external USB (HDD/SSD) drives, it was and is only available in the
*system tray*. (See Settings -> Personalisation -> Taskbar -> Other
system tray icons.) (Also see Ralph Fox's response for a screenshot.)

So, while for Windows these devices are *similar* - i.e. have a drive
letter, can be accessed outside File Explorer, etc. - they are not
(treated) the *same*.

Le 6 Sep 2023 15:30:34 GMT, Frank Slootweg a écrit :
> AFAIK/AFAIR, for an external USB *drive* - i.e. a HDD (or SSD) -
> 'Eject' was never an option in (Windows) File Explorer.

For some reason, since Windows 10, one of my older computers allows me to
eject the main hard drive (which is also the system hard drive) and I
don't know why.

I never actually tried to eject it but it does propose me to.

On 9/6/2023 11:35 AM, Fox McCloud45 wrote:
> Le 6 Sep 2023 15:30:34 GMT, Frank Slootweg a écrit :
>> AFAIK/AFAIR, for an external USB *drive* - i.e. a HDD (or SSD) -
>> 'Eject' was never an option in (Windows) File Explorer.
>
> For some reason, since Windows 10, one of my older computers allows me to
> eject the main hard drive (which is also the system hard drive) and I
> don't know why.
>
> I never actually tried to eject it but it does propose me to.
>

When you try it, a dialog will appear. Perhaps "the pagefile.sys is still open".

You cannot pop the C: partition that way, because of open files. And it
should tell you that. It should propose what files you need to close,
to make it happen :-) And of course, no amount of attempting to do that,
will work.

If you go into the BIOS and disable "HotPlug" tick box on the
SATA port, it should stop offering the drive in Safely Remove.

Sometimes, add-on controllers, like an Asmedia SATA, can be
programmed for permanent HotPlug and there's no BIOS setting
available for it. The ports with working HotPlug tick box, are
the six Southbridge SATA ports.

Paul

Le Wed, 6 Sep 2023 14:21:05 -0400, Paul a écrit :

> On 9/6/2023 11:35 AM, Fox McCloud45 wrote:
>> Le 6 Sep 2023 15:30:34 GMT, Frank Slootweg a écrit :
>>> AFAIK/AFAIR, for an external USB *drive* - i.e. a HDD (or SSD) -
>>> 'Eject' was never an option in (Windows) File Explorer.
>>
>> For some reason, since Windows 10, one of my older computers allows me
>> to eject the main hard drive (which is also the system hard drive) and
>> I don't know why.
>>
>> I never actually tried to eject it but it does propose me to.
>>
>>
> When you try it, a dialog will appear. Perhaps "the pagefile.sys is
> still open".
>
> You cannot pop the C: partition that way, because of open files. And it
> should tell you that. It should propose what files you need to close,
> to make it happen :-) And of course, no amount of attempting to do that,
> will work.

Well I won't try still, heh.

> If you go into the BIOS and disable "HotPlug" tick box on the SATA port,
> it should stop offering the drive in Safely Remove.
>
> Sometimes, add-on controllers, like an Asmedia SATA, can be programmed
> for permanent HotPlug and there's no BIOS setting available for it. The
> ports with working HotPlug tick box, are the six Southbridge SATA ports.

I don't have a HotPlug tickbox, no. All I know is that it's an NVIDIA
MCP73 motherboard.

Thanks for the info.

Bill S.