Can’t Eject External Hard Drive Drive or USB on Windows 11/10 [Solution]

Can’t Eject External Hard Drive Drive or USB on Windows 11/10 [Solution]

Command Used:

Having issues ejecting an external hard drive on Windows 10? When removing a hard drive from your Windows, you have to remove it safely if you do not want your data to be corrupted or damaged. If you cannot eject the external hard drive safely or the option is greyed out, there can be some causes to this error, such as the hard drive still being used or outdated drivers.

Recently, several colleagues have complained that they can’t eject external hard drives on their Windows computers. There are several reasons for this, including outdated or malfunctioning USB drivers that are preventing the removal of the drive, or other processes accessing the contents of the drive.

Issues addressed in this tutorial:
can't eject external hard drive windows 10
can't eject hard drive windows 11
can't eject external hard drive windows 11
can't eject USB currently in use
can ejection fraction be improved
can ejection fraction improved with exercise
i can't eject my external hard drive
cd won't eject

Some users have reported that they are not able to safely eject their external hard drive like USBs etc. This issue is often caused by other processes that are using the contents of the drive or Windows USB drivers which prevent the removal of the external drive. Users have reported that they cannot eject their hard drive using the ‘Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media’ option which is located on the bottom-left side of the taskbar.

This tutorial will apply for computers, laptops, desktops, and tablets running the Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) from all supported hardware manufactures, like Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo, Alienware, Razer, MSI, Huawei , Microsoft Surface, and Samsung.

[neilhassanali]

Why should it be so difficult to do such a basic operation. Clearly a windows failing.

[joelgagne]

If you're gonna go this far to make a tutorial you might as well plug in a hard drive and actually show us

[deanmcinerney]

Telling people to restart the device is kinda irritating. That isn't a solution to a basic fault of a computer system

[ken]

The problem was the task manager for me. Closing everything else, restarting, formatting, using command prompt, nothing worked.
But closing the task manager was the fix. Now each time I need to eject my drives, I have to close the task manager.

[urielcohen]

but why is that? i mean if the pc use it and we restart the pc while it's using it maybe it can cause a problem to my hard disk drive and my backup(!?)

[CJGame-N-Play]

When I try to stop my external hard drive, it states... "the external hard drive is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged". What??!!

[mintiwolff]

Reminder for my future self when I come back to this video because I forgot what to do:
Go to task manager (search in the start menu) and remove the ssd hard drive from the task AND go to the CMD and enter the link in description into the cmd command prompter and then choose one of the 4 options, either the usb one or the extreme hard drive one and wait until it says it is safe to remove.

[jag-gaj]

just writing this for anyone that has the same problem as me. None of this worked for me lol. Even the command prompt but I failed to realize that there was a USB icon in the right corner hidden icons. All I had to do was eject from there and I was good.

[asmrvidsaccount]

I tried this but I'm getting an error saying "This volume is not removable" even though it is an external HDD. Does this with every external drive I have

[skylestia]

On the last step I get the error "This device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged."

If I try to eject from explorer or the icon in the system tray I get the error "This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again."

If I use PowerToys File Locksmith to see what processes are using the drive, it shows nothing is using the drive.

I ended up on this video trying to figure out what's going on

[mumblinge]

If you're having to restart your computer why not just unplug the drive when, during the restart, the screen goes blank?

[ethimself]

Reminds me about the command prompt - A couple of times in the past instead of typing in the CMD I typed in the full Command prompt and got to a different command prompt that popped up, can't remember now although I believe it had my name in it. Too chicken to find out what might happen so reverted back to cmd. Amy thoughts on this? Thanks

[Arty_McParty]

I get on Problem Ejecting WD My passport :The WD Passport 0820 USB Device ' is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged" ? Any solution?
And it does couple clicking sounds at the start when i plug my portable drive in

[gagevictoria]

Thanks for the video for me what worked was shutting down my pc unplugging the hard drive then Starting my pc back up and plugging it back in I was the. Able to use the safe remove feature. I don’t know why Microsoft chooses to let many bugs slip past.

[davidsalah]

I tried this out, and it said, "The device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged." Would anyone be able to help me with this? Struggling to eject my hard drive, and I can't seem to be able to do it.

[shaonian]

Thanks, the drive in safely remove hardware was grayed out for no reason other than to give me a hard time.

[timstowell]

Just what I was looking for. Thank you so much!

[ERMAC]

when i use the command Prompt, it says it cannot be removed. I even uninstalled the usb controller and rebooted. I even removed it from the registry . Any more ideas? windows 11 and an external WD elements 1TB. I even formatted it to windows NTFS

[Bbam]

I tried another person's tutorial. Went to cmd, run as admin, typed "diskpart", "list volume", then listed the volume that had the usb listed on it. I typed to remove it and it still wouldn't let me remove it. I looked in task manager and the usb wasn't being used but my pc still said i couldnt remove it because it was being used. My last resort was resetting my pc and then safely ejecting once it allowed me too. Ugh 😮‍💨

[bertbert-lu]

Download control panel on to desktop ..when you want to get rid of can't eject notice, delete control panel from desktop .. Sounds crazy but so far it works for me .. then you should be able to eject external hard drive