I have a powered external hard drive for back up purposes. From time to time it starts 
up on its own for no apparent reason. I just tried to remove it and got the message 
that it was in use. I was not accessing anything there, there are no programs on 
it and it is not shared. I can hear it humming. How do I stop whatever use there 
is?

Tip: Run a free scan for common Windows errors ad

re: external hard drive in use Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:03 am Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) Presumably it is physically connected all the time ? Programs and processes can poll devices for all sorts of information at any time, and that can cause the HDD to spin up. Badly written applications do not always "let go" of the connection they've made, hence the HDD being "in use". If this doesn't happen in Safe Mode, you may have to go through the tedious process of eliminating your startup programs one by one to find the culprit :-( PS If you have mapped network drives it could be that Explorer is doing the polling, although I've not seen that myself. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 9:06 am Posted by Jack Shaw (148 messages posted) Yes, it is connected all the time. I can remove it when I shut down the desktop. But I really would prefer not to have to do that each time I want to disconnect it. I prefer to click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon and remove it that way. But even when nothing is being accessed on it and it is not humming, I get the "in use" message. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 9:36 am Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) Pretty sure that's an application (a badly written one) not letting go of the drive - it happens, not uncommon. Corel PaintShop Pro does that on my system, for instance. Only a tedious elimination process will track it down, there's no magic wand. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:04 am Posted by Adam Bradley (8787 messages posted) Could be your antivirus's real time scanner or any running media players as well. On Monday, November 2, 2009 at 9:06 am, Jack Shaw wrote: >Yes, it is connected all the time. I can remove it when I shut down the desktop. >But I really would prefer not to have to do that each time I want to disconnect it. >I prefer to click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon and remove it that way. But >even when nothing is being accessed on it and it is not humming, I get the "in use" >message. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:19 am Posted by Jack Shaw (148 messages posted) Interesting. I do have Corel Paintshop Pro X loaded on my machine. The machine is a 64 bit with Vista 64. PSP is running in 32 bit. Is there a way to determine if that is the culprit? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:22 am Posted by Jack Shaw (148 messages posted) I think I can rule out the media player. But the real time antivirus is interesting. I am using AVG free. How do I check if that is it? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:31 am Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) Yes, run a session without using it and see what happens. Make sure its got nothing in your startup folder or msconfig. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:51 am Posted by Adam Bradley (8787 messages posted) Same was as PSP, boot without it running and see if you get the problem, might be that it does not release the drive after scanning a file. Like Martin said this is just a process of elimination which can take a long time, try not to go bald before we get there. Also did you load any software that came with the drive? On Monday, November 2, 2009 at 10:22 am, Jack Shaw wrote: >I think I can rule out the media player. But the real time antivirus is interesting. >I am using AVG free. How do I check if that is it? [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 12:07 pm Posted by Jack Shaw (148 messages posted) Balding is not an issue. But I may pull out my beard by the roots. ;-). I haven't loaded any software from the HD. It is mainly a back up for data. Is there something I can do to stop PSP or AVG from accessing the HD? I'm loving the education I get here. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: external hard drive in use Monday, November 2, 2009 at 1:26 pm Posted by MartinM (7551 messages posted) I expect its PSP and the only answer is to move to PhotoShop :-(( [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows Vista Discussion Forum