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Author Topic: USB Safely Remove for Free  (Read 15020 times)

wraith808

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USB Safely Remove for Free
« on: August 19, 2009, 12:58 PM »
During the week of august 19th-25th, Safely Remove is giving away licenses of USB Safely Remove

http://safelyremove....m/giveawayweeka9.htm

I use it, and it's definitely a useful app at times.

Carol Haynes

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2009, 01:18 PM »
Thanks for the heads up - looks like a useful tool. Nothing more frustrating than wanting to remove a USB device and having to reboot because it won't be released!

MilesAhead

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #2 on: August 19, 2009, 01:28 PM »
Thanks for the heads up - looks like a useful tool. Nothing more frustrating than wanting to remove a USB device and having to reboot because it won't be released!

You reboot?  I click Remove a couple of times then pull the thing!!  :)

edit: just noticed this myself.  I'm waiting for license key now.

edit2: installed on both W7 32 bit and Vista64.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2009, 02:02 PM by MilesAhead »

Carol Haynes

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #3 on: August 19, 2009, 04:29 PM »
You reboot?  I click Remove a couple of times then pull the thing!!  :)

Trouble is I have done that with a USB hard drive and ended up having to run a full CHKDSK to fix the errors caused!

mwb1100

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #4 on: August 19, 2009, 04:37 PM »
This is a nice little utility - the USB device handling built into Windows (XP anyway) can be very frustrating.  This tool makes it work just like you'd want it to work (at least it's the way I want it to work).  MS could learn a little something from these guys. It's one of those things that's so small in some ways that you'd never think to look for a tool to replace the built-in functionality.  But once you have this tool, it's irritating when you go to use it on a machine that doesn't have it (not the end of the world, but irritating).

  - it gives you the name of the devices, so you don't have to guess or search out which drive letter windows gave your USB drive
  - it tells you exactly what's going on if there's an open file (what file and what process has it open) preventing a 'clean' remove
  - it'll close the processes for you or let you force the device to be stopped in that case, if you want (I can't remember if the Windows tool lets you do that short of just yanking the device out)
  - it lets you configure the drive letter the device should get (this always really bugged me - without this, plugging the device into a different USB port would often cause Windows to assign a different drive letter)

Some things that I don't use, but I can imagine some people would find very useful:

  - handles card readers that show as multiple drives intelligently
  - lets you define actions to perform when a device is plugged in, stopped, etc.


It's a no-brainer for free.  I hope this nets them some sales in the next update cycle.

wraith808

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #5 on: August 19, 2009, 04:40 PM »
You reboot?  I click Remove a couple of times then pull the thing!!  :)

Trouble is I have done that with a USB hard drive and ended up having to run a full CHKDSK to fix the errors caused!

Same here.  I bought this on BDJ, and it was one of the best software investments I've made recently.

MilesAhead

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2009, 07:47 PM »
You reboot?  I click Remove a couple of times then pull the thing!!  :)

Trouble is I have done that with a USB hard drive and ended up having to run a full CHKDSK to fix the errors caused!

That seems odd.  Did you have write caching enabled or folders shared over the network?  I disconnect all shares, hit the Stop thingy a couple of times, then run my UpdateEnv program a few times to try the flush the shell.  In any case, now we have the utility so cheating is no longer necessary. :)

edit: btw what really surprised me is the "Eject" command for BlacX USB dock seems to do nothing.  Every time I tried it I got the "windows is unable yadda yadda..."  I'll have to try this utility with it to see what happens.

« Last Edit: August 19, 2009, 07:50 PM by MilesAhead »

cranioscopical

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #7 on: August 19, 2009, 10:19 PM »
what really surprised me is the "Eject" command for BlacX USB dock seems to do nothing.  Every time I tried it I got the "windows is unable yadda yadda..."  I'll have to try this utility with it to see what happens.
You'll be happy, it works fine with mine when using USB!  :)

CleverCat

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2009, 01:30 AM »
Nice find!  :Thmbsup:

Innuendo

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2009, 03:13 PM »
Great find...signed up to get one. The only limitation I noticed on this free license is it is good for the current version (v4.1) only.

MilesAhead

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2009, 05:40 PM »
Great find...signed up to get one. The only limitation I noticed on this free license is it is good for the current version (v4.1) only.

Yeah, but if we're lucky and there's no big bugs then we're golden.  This is one of those things like Unlocker or LockHunter that's a must have in Windows. :)

wraith808

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #11 on: August 20, 2009, 05:49 PM »
I've been using it for a while, and I haven't found anything major.  The execute file part seems to be having something weird with relative paths, but I haven't really looked into it.

libeco

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #12 on: August 21, 2009, 10:40 AM »
I just tried it and decided it wasn't something for me. On my laptop with 3GB RAM I think a program that uses 15mb, while just sitting in the system tray is a little exaggerated. Also, when I used it for one of my external HD's I heard the drive make some strange noises... the kind of noises you don't want to hear your HD make.

SO for me it's just good old XP safely remove, perhaps four times and than just pull the USB-plug out.
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." - Thomas Edison

"It always seems impossible until its done." - Nelson Mandela

MilesAhead

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Re: USB Safely Remove for Free
« Reply #13 on: August 21, 2009, 01:31 PM »
Just tried it with my USB docking station.  It tells me Volume Tracking Information service has hold of it even though Restore Points are not enabled for that drive.  Also it's not in the Windows Search indexing.  Anyone know the trick to disable/enable volume tracking logging for a drive?