USB external hard drive safely unplug. How?

[daeojkim]

I am using an external hard drive on a USB external enclosure.
I got the enclosure today and it works like a champ.

I was wondering how should I remove the device safely.

If I just unplug it while the drive is spinning I am afraid that it may damage the drive.

I did safely remove the device through windows, but it does not seem to power off the HD and it continues to spin.

Is it alright to just unplug it?

How is everyone else using an external hard drive removing their devices?

[DavidNZ]

I have three external HDDs and I usually click on the icon in the taskbar and select which drive to remove. Then, about a 10 sec or so later, either the icon will disappear or the list of attached drives (remember I have three) will not contain the one I just selected to remove when i re-click the icon. I've disabled balloons so I don't get a pop-up saying it's safe to remove.

You won't always hear a hdd spin down after a removal in windows.

The other way to do it is use the easyeject programme from ibm. I used it for a while but found it easier to just use the icon.

[GomJabbar]

First use the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the System Tray on the right to remove the drive from Windows. Then turn off the power switch (preferable) or unplug the drive. Finally you can remove the USB cable.

[beerak]

I have WD Passport 40GB, sometimes Windows does not want to unplug it

I am forced to remove it, but then there are corrupted files