Seagate Mass Storage Device cannot stop/eject. Help please.

[Barbara348]

Hi, need help please.

I purchased a 'Seagate Expansion Portable Drive a couple of months ago. It is a USB 2.0 plug & play 320. (no installation CD needed).
I used it for the first time today, to copy all 'My Documents' onto, to keep as a failsafe backup in case of PC failure.

All seemed fine, it had copied everything when I checked. Major problem is that I cannot stop/eject it.

When I click on the 'safely remove hardware' icon, I keep getting this message: " The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later".

That was 2 hours ago - how do I stop/eject it without damaging something?

I'm not very technical I'm afraid, please advise/help me get out of this mess unscathed .

Cheers

Barbara.

[[Ray]]

Hi

This "behaviour" is quite normal.

In a controlled manner, close all/any programs that you are running,
then just logoff/poweroff as per normal.
(It may take a minute or two)
This will ensure that any data waiting to be written to the drive is "flushed" to the drive.

Then when you poweron/logon you will be ok.

If you want to check your drive,
then go to Seagate and dowload the relevant SeaTools
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0cjn/
(and/or use the Windows drive error check)

Regards
Ray

ps You do not need to "unload/eject" the drive after each use, you can leave it plugged in "permanently". You can always unplug it after powering it all off.

[downside]

Out of interest, did you switch the portable device on after you had booted up your computer?

Normally I switch my external hard drive on after booting up my PC and then safely eject it once the manual backup has completed.  I do the same with USB drives as well.

It sounds like you may have set your portable drive up to be a permanent drive rather than a portable drive.

[Barbara348]

Hi Ray, Thanks very much for the advice.

I had to go out this morning, after I posted the request for help and I had to leave my PC switched on because I thought I might mess things up good & proper if I switched off with the portable drive still on.

When I came back, there was a small windows message telling me to choose what device I wanted to eject, then click 'stop'. I did that and up came the message telling me it was safe to eject it.

I don't really want to keep it plugged in permanently - I just want to use it as a backup for all 'My Documents' in case of PC failure.
 I'm beginning to wonder if I should have stuck to putting the backup on a USB stick as I did before.

I'll remember your advice about the 'Windows Drive Error Check', I was unaware of that.

Thank you very much for your help.

Cheers

Barbara.

[Barbara348]

Hi there Downside,

Thanks for your reply.

To my knowledge, I didn't set the Portable Drive up in anyway.

I already had the PC on and I decided to copy all 'My Documents' onto the Portable Drive - the first time I've used it.

There is no CD with it, it's just 'plug & play'. I bought it for that reason.

As you well know, I'm not good with technology, the simpler the better for me.

I'm already wondering how to keep the information stored on it up to date.

Previously, I used to keep it on an 8GB USB stick, then once a month I deleted it all and then copied all updated ' My Documents' across to the stick again.

I was going to do the same with the portable Drive or am I making hard work of it?

Barbara.
 

[[Ray]]

Hi

* you would/could get the same problem with any usb ... drive/hdd/pen/SD/etc
It is only when the process has finished that windows releases the "drive".
Some of the examples people have quoted are when the backup process is "simple"

* If you have the space on your usb drive (320gb? Enough!?) ...............
Each time yu create a backup, create a folder on your backup drive with the date. eg 20110331_MyDocuments     
Then copy it all to that folder.
(all backups would then be sequenced by name within date)

(Don't forget your family tree file if it is not in "My Documents")

Keep it simple.  (  A N D     R E L A X   )

Regards
Ray

[downside]

I'm already wondering how to keep the information stored on it up to date.

If you have Windows 7 then it has a fairly decent backup program.  I tend to run it manually when I notice that it is flagged in the system tray area:

Solve PC issues: 1 message

If you have a large external hard drive then it will backup your personal data and also make a Windows image of the current Windows system state.  If you just use a USB drive then it just backs up your personal data.


If you have Windows XP then it also has a backup program but it is not quite so user friendly. 

You can schedule backups but if your backup device is not plugged in and switched on then nothing gets backed up automatically.

[Barbara348]

Hello Ray, thanks again for the advice.

I've done as you suggested, opened a new folder within the 'J' hard drive, using today date & called my documents as in your reply.

I've now selected total  Folders/Files within My Documents and selected 'copy to' directed to 'J' drive and it's now in progress.

Just have to hope now,  that it will eject o.k on completion and I don't get a repetition of yesterday.

Cheers

Barbara.

[Barbara348]

Hi Downside,

Thanks to you for the info on 'backups'.

I've never used a 'backup' facility as such, I've just 'copied to' as I'm doing at the moment.

I have Windows XP sp3 but I've no idea where to find the installed? backup facility.

 I wish I could use it really because I would like to have a way of the saved data being updated automatically when doing a backup copy, instead of having to delete a previous backup and not clog up the drive.

However, as Ray mentioned, I do have 320 capacity on the external drive so I suppose it would take some time before it was necessary to delete some of the backups!!

Downside,if you have the time & patience to tell me how to use the Windows backup, I would appreciate it .

Thanks

Barbara.