Some are reporting this is caused by Acronis Software being Installed on the system and may be due to one of the virtual device drivers installed by Acronis, I have Acronis installed and have this same issue.
I found this out by emailing Ed Bott
One could assume other software that installed a virtual device driver could cause the same issue.
Drivers installed by Acronis 11 on my system are:
snapman.sys (Acronis snapshot API)
tifsfilt.sys (Acronis file system filter)
timntr.sys (Acronis backup archive explorer)
tdrpman.sys (Acronis Try and Decide Restore Points volume filter driver)
I am troubleshooting exactly which driver is causing it on my PC, I will report back the results soon.
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UPDATE:
Uninstalled Acronis > reboot, but it left 2 Acronis drivers loading, so I cannot confirm this is the issue yet.
Update2: got the Acronis drivers to stop loading using AutoRuns > driver tab, I still have the same issue as you Ashwin, the mystery continues.
Update3: even in safe mode it errors out.
Update 4: I used Process Monitor to capture the events during eject, I did it for both methods, the usual method using the task bar icon and the RunDll method, the methods are completely different in how windows executes them and the processes it uses, since I can find no documentation about this command in Windows 7, I am going to assume it is a deprecated command that was never intended to work properly in Windows 7.
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I had a similar problem with Windows 8. When I clicked on the icon in the system tray, it displayed "Open Devices and Printers" along with three dots, like "..." underneath. All of my USB cables and devices were disconnected from my computer except the USB mouse and USB keyboard. I selected "Open Devices and Printers" and removed a device called "USB 2.0 Reader". The icon immediately disappeared.
When I restarted my computer, the operating system started to automatically re install the "USB 2.0 Reader". The icon reappeared along with the three dots. Keep in mind, there is no USB reader attached to the computer.
Instead of removing the device (Windows would just re install it again), I decided to disable it. I opened the Windows Device Manager and selected the "Disk Drives" and selected "Generic - Multi-Card USB Device". I right clicked it and selected "Disable". The icon immediately disappeared.
I restarted my computer and the icon did not reappear. The device still shows up in the Device Manager, but it is disabled. The keyboard and mouse continue to work and I can connect my Windows phone to my computer.
It isn't clear what the root cause is, but I was able to remove the icon, stop Windows from re installing it, and if there is a problem in the future, I can always enable the device again. Also, this allows other "actual" devices to be connected and display the icon in the system tray (the true intention of the notification icon).
Hope this helps!
Best Answer
No, but it does not mean it is a death sentence if you do.
You can not guarantee that all the writes have been flushed out, but after several minutes of sitting it is likely that the data is flushed out. However, you may have some issues with some filesystem maintenance things that don't happen until you unmount if you are in "Performance mode" (see the next paragraph)
However there is another option (and it is likely already set for 99% of all removable media). If right click on the device and go to properties. Then from there go to the hardware tab and find your device.
Click
Properties
, then click on theChange Settings
button on the new page. Go to thePolicies
tab.If you device is set to "Quick Removal" you can remove your device without going though "Safely Remove Hardware" without worrying about data loss.
If you do not have a
Policies
tab you likely skipped theChange Settings
step.