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How to eject docking station under Win 7?

Windows 7 on ThinkPads
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kkk
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How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#1 Post by kkk » Wed Mar 25, 2015 4:46 pm

Hi all, recently I connected my T60/T61 FrankPad to dock. st. type 2504 and when I wanted do disconnect it while running, I got a message saying something like it failed to and I should close all running applications and may need to enable hibernation. I get this message whether I use the dock's eject button or "Safely Remove Hardware and....." feature of Windows 7. I am using my laptop with SSD and I did most of these OS optimizations for running Win7 on SSD, including turning off hibernation. Closed all programs, but still get this message. So, is there any way to eject the docking station without using hibernation or turning it off? How are you doing it and what are yours win. config?

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Re: How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#2 Post by pkiff » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:03 am

In general, under Win 7 with that generation of Thinkpads, you should be able to use the Undock command from the Start Menu. And if that works then I think you will find you can also use the physical buttons on the dock. But Windows can be quite finnicky about what it thinks is an ongoing connection that should prevent you from undocking. Some of my machines undock cleanly while others don't. And like you, I have found that trying to "Safely remove hardware..." until nothing is left attached, still does not always allow me to undock. In my case, the culprits that prevent undocking tend to be network- and USB-related items, including especially mapped drives (i.e. drives that are mapped to a drive letter) - which sometimes prevent undocking even after "Safely removing" them.
X1E Gen 4 · X1T 3rd Gen · W520 · Legacy: P52, T60p, X61T, 600X, 770Z
Nostalgic for: 600X PIII 850MHz in a SelectaDock III with 64MB Voodoo 5 5500 and Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1.

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Re: How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#3 Post by dr_st » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:45 am

I also found, that in all generation of Thinkpads, and all operating systems (at least XP and up), it is not actually required to use the "undock" feature. Sometimes it causes more harm than good. I always just pull the laptop off the dock and that's it.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

pkiff
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Re: How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#4 Post by pkiff » Mon Mar 30, 2015 6:17 pm

dr_st wrote:[....] I always just pull the laptop off the dock and that's it.
Well, Your Mileage May Vary! With some of the docking systems, doesn't the physical eject button actually lock up and physically prevent you from undocking, if there are still ongoing processes? I think my X61T and T60p both do that. Or maybe I'm misremembering...that seems to happen a lot to me these days.
X1E Gen 4 · X1T 3rd Gen · W520 · Legacy: P52, T60p, X61T, 600X, 770Z
Nostalgic for: 600X PIII 850MHz in a SelectaDock III with 64MB Voodoo 5 5500 and Sound Blaster Audigy 5.1.

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Re: How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#5 Post by dr_st » Tue Mar 31, 2015 12:06 am

It never happened to me with a T60. I haven't really owned a *61 series machine, so I don't know. But if you mean - is the physical eject button physically locked? No, that definitely doesn't happen. Only a key locks this button.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
X61 7673-V2V, T60 2007-QPG, T42 2373-F7G, X32 (IPS Screen), A31p w/ Ultrabay Numpad

kkk
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Re: How to eject docking station under Win 7?

#6 Post by kkk » Tue Apr 07, 2015 9:27 am

PFHAAAA, I hate software! pkiff, isn't it useless to use a docking station if you have to remove all the attached devices when you want to undock :)! No matter if I use the docking station button or "undock" from start menu or "Safely remove..." the results were equal. But as I suspected, the problem wasn't exactly the disabled hibernation procedure. I fowolled dr_st's advice and when forced it to eject, I got some message about Printer port logical interface. Reinstalled all printers - there are one using USB interface and one using Parallel port; shared or not, it doest changed the behavior of the system; then stopped two HP services - HP Network Devices Support and HP CUE DeviceDiscovery Service (I think that the last service didn't change anything, but the printer/scanner still works fine so....). Now if the USB printer is on, I still get the same message, but when I turn it off in most cases the undocking is succesfull, except that sometimes I get another message about ieee 1284.4 compatible printer which is still in use by some program. Tryed to find if any of the startup programs are causing this message, but under SafeMode all I got was a message saying that "VGAsave service, which controls one of the devices on the docking station doesn't support Plug and Play and can't be stopped"!!?!? Then stopped all of them but still sometimes can't hot undock and the message about ieee 1284.4 compatible printer appears. Does anyone have an idea what to change under BIOS Parallel port settings? By the way, I noticed that most of the time when I start the LPT printer, it's status is still offline and no matter how long I wait it doest get "ready". I have to restart the system to be accepted or install it again.

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