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[soniahf]

I´m using my external HD WITHOUT the software, using only "drag end drop". With a normal pen drive we "eject" it to finish the work. This option "eject" does not appear when I clic the right button of the mouse.   At page "How to use an external drive without any special software." I couldn´t  found this question. Can I simply unplug the cable? Doing this can I damage my external hd? (SN 2GE1N1EJ). Thanks !

[fzabkar]

You didn't specify your OS, but in Windows 98SE I have a hotplug icon in my Systray which allows me to safely remove USB drives.

Unplugging the cable is not recommended. If there is data sitting in the write cache, then this will not be written to the drive, possibly resulting in file system corruption. You may see a "delayed write failure" message in such cases. To avoid this problem, you could configure your drive for "quick removal". This effectively disables write caching.

Otherwise, go to Device Manager and make sure the "removable" checkbox is ticked.

Your particular OS may do things differently, but the principles should be similar.

[soniahf]

My OS is windows XP. There is no icon in my Systray that allows me to remove the drive. When I remove my pendrive, I eject it from Windows Explorer clicking with the right button.

I found here and the drive is already configured for quick removal. So, there is no problem to unplug from pc?!?!?  Thanks for your response !

[fzabkar]

I'm not a Windows XP user, so I hesitate to say that all is OK. Instead you can go to Start -> Run and paste the following command line:

RUNDLL32.EXE SHELL32.DLL,Control_RunDLL HotPlug.dll

(See http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/rundll32.htm)

This should bring up a "safe to remove" dialogue box.

You could create a shortcut to the above command on your desktop, or add it to your QuickLaunch bar.

But there must be a more elegant solution, even if I don't know what it is. :-(

In Windows 98SE you can edit the registry to enable the hotplug icon in the Systray. My research leads me to believe that Win XP uses the same registry key.

Go to Start -> Run and type ...

regedit

Then navigate to ...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\SysTray

If necessary, edit the following keys accordingly:

HotPlugFlags = 0x00000002
Services = 0x0000000f

A reboot will probably be required for the changes to take effect.