Jane & Raven,

Forgive me for butting in but when I used the "safely remove" for my camera memory card, it caused problems to the card and rendered one to not work anymore so I just pull my card out without using the "safely remove" and have no problems with my card since.

I do use it for my flash drive with no problem.

I always safely remove a USB device. Simply yanking it out can lead to data loss if not outright damage. I've had thumb drives "hang on" for a long time and refuse to allow safe removal. If that lasts too long, I shut down before removing it.

bpgreen is correct it can cause total corruption of data or damage on the device as well as the pc, especially memory cards since they are more fragile.
I would have Dell repair it if it is new, that is a faulty item, have you told them about this?

Even though USB devices are Plug & PlayÂthat is, they're ready to go upon being plugged inÂyou shouldn't just unplug them. A USB port has current running through it, so the power jolt caused by unplugging a "hot" connection can corrupt data on a storage device, camera, or mp3 player.

"The purpose of "Safely Remove Hardware" is simple: it's how you tell Windows that you're about to remove a device so that Windows can finish whatever it needs to do with it. In the case of disks, for example, Windows flushes all disk buffers, avoiding things like potential corruption.

And that's the fear - if you remove something like a USB thumb drive without first telling Windows, it's possible to corrupt the contents of the drive. In practice that doesn't happen often, but it's possible."
Safely Remove Hardware

You just never know when it will happen, I have definitely seen it happen and it is not pretty, which is why I stress it so much. For things like Ipods it can make it no longer operable.

So if it were my pc I would find out why it is not functioning properly.

Here is how to create a desktop shortcut link for it you might try that and see if it works any better.
Create a Safely Remove Hardware shortcut

there is some very good info here for options on how to fix or work around the issues.
How to solve Windows' inability to safely remove hardware?

there is a little program you can purchase that is supposed to make it a simple one click solution, but I do not know anything about it. I guess you could try the 30 trial period and see if it works.
USB Safely Remove

So I would do as bpgreen does and shut down before removing it if I was not able to get the remove safely to operate.

RC, I have another question regarding this topic. I have never had a problem with my older XP laptop when using "Safely Remove", but with my 2 year old desktop it gets confussing. There are sooooo many usb devices listed that its difficult to tell which device I want to stop and when I do find the correct one and hit stop that usb port stops working altogether and only a reboot brings it back. With external hard drives connected I always just shut down, but when downloading media cards from my camera (I have built-in card slots) I usually have 4-5 cards to download and its a real pain! If I go to "My Computer" and right click on the drive that contains the media card that is plugged in and then hit "Eject" doesn't that stop the card too for safe removal? I was told it did, but I'd like your opinion.

Hummm interesting. Surprised I haven't lost anything. Msm84 brings up another point. I don't use 'safely' to remove disks. I just push the drawer button. Are you supposed to use that 'safely' before doing that. Man I'd be in big trouble because I put disks in and out all the time.

Msm, on my computers which work properly, I just click on the first drive which shows. I assume it is the right one. It always is the first on my machines. I also agree with you on the memory cards. I usually just put them in and pull them out.

Guess I've had a guardian angel!

Jane

Jane I don't think that includes Cd/DVD's, but the option is availiable if for some reason the eject button does not work next to the drive. If I'm wrong about that I'm sure someone will help us out with the correct answer ;o)

Also the "Safely Remove" window lists all the ports in use and that would include printers, mouse (if usb) and any other hardware you might have attaced. I thought they are listed by drive letter and therefore the one on top might not be that media card or card reader you want to remove. With the HP built in card readers I have 7 extra ports plus all the usb ports and they all show up hence my confussion *lol*

I always check to see the drive letter it has assigned to it, then LEFT click the icon in the systray with the green arrow and remove the one that shows up for that drive letter.

Since it was suggested yesterday in another thread, that we should always do the "safely remove" thing,I made sure I did it that way all day yesterday. You can easily tell which drive you are disconnecting by just doing a left click on the Icon at the bottom of the screen. Anyway, when I turned my computer on this morning, some of my drives have switched place with each other. One USB drive in now F instead of G and my external drive is now G. My shortcut wouldn't work, so I checked it out and just changed the shortcut, because I sure don't know how to change my drives back. Could the "safely remove" thing be the problem? Hmmm...Ida

Ida drive letters will change like that, I have to check each time I put something into mine to see what letter it has assigned to it this time, that is normal and does not affect anything, just check to see which letter is assigned to it as BPGreen said and yes then left click on the icon in the systray to see clearly which item you want to remove.

CD's do not apply to the safely remove icon.

My card reader is a usb plug in card reader, it has a little cable on it that I plug into a usb port then I plug my memory cards into the card reader, So for me I look for what it has assigned that card reader as when I plug it into the usb port.

hitting eject should also be a safe alternative.
If your pc is having to be rebooted each time you remove something from a usb port then there is an issue that is not normal behavior.
My pc's do not have any built in memory card readers, I am not sure how those would show up I have never looked actually. Maybe someone that has a pc with those built in will respond.
Mine as I said uses a usb device which is a separate memory card reader so for me it appears as a drive I have attached.

You might try what that one link suggest and do the shortcut on your desktop and see if using that has any different effect.

Ravencajun, thanks for the link for creating a desktop shortcut for Safely Remove Hardware. Sometimes with my desktop comp, I wait in vain for that to appear so that I don't have to shut down to remove my flash drive. Now the shortcut is there along with its own icon identifying it.

It was from someone on this forum years ago that I learned to make a shutdown shortcut, and I've used it on all my computers ever since.