Acking

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NS · #1 Post by NS » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:09 pm

Sorry, i don't know how to spell arking or acking.

*Curious* When you pull out the USB mass storage from the computer, do you do it fast, click safely remove or just swicth off the computer and after that pull it off?

I tried pulling it out twice on my thinkpad slowly and the thing just got damaged. I asked my friends and they told me something related to electrical arking. Is that true?

What is electrical arking and what harm can it pose to USB mass storage thumb drives? As you know i am a lazy moron, i never stop my thumb drive and safely plug it out but i will just pull it out when it is still running. Now, my thumb drive is damaged again. <--256MB
sandisk cruzer micro USB mass storage.

#2 Post by **jdhurst** » Tue Jul 11, 2006 9:32 pm

Some devices (my Sony Ericsson air card amongst them) have voltage issues and *must* be stopped before removing lest they be damaged. I don't know about thumb drives, but I would stop them first.

And to belt and suspender "stop the device", consider this:

I had my other drive in my TP running VISTA, I stopped and ejected the DVD and inserted my drive bay with my production XP drive. Could not access it. I tried to stop it, and VISTA offered no option to stop. So I just ejected it. It was still turning and made an awful noise. I immediately stopped, reinstalled my XP drive and ran a full (several hour) SpinRite test. The drive is fine, but ALWAYS stop your device before ejecting.
... JD Hurst

NS · #3 Post by NS » Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:34 pm

jdhurst,

thanks for your reply.

The problem is i can't stop that device at all. It keeps saying 'The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later.

I had closed all my browsers and not a single browser is on my task bar. I checked my CPU cycles and process in the task manager but my CPU is 0% and my process show nothing but a blank page. I clicked to stop the device 5 times but still show me 'The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later. So i just pulled it out directly or else how to take it out. I am not going to turn off my computer so soon and that thing is wearing down my battery.

My friends had tried pulling the flash drives (thumb drives) for many times but theirs got no damages or whatsoever. They said i must pull the device out fast to prevent arking, is this correct? I pulled it inch by inch becuase if i pull too fast, the next thing is my Tp USB port will be damaged and i need to re solder a new USB port head to the motherboard again right?

Always very curious what can i do to stop this arking.

BTW: IS this arking or acking?

alexzabr · #4 Post by **alexzabr** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 9:49 am

AFAIK, safely remove USB device prompt suggest to be useful if you apply some kind of caching to your mass storage (or DiskOnKey, for instance), so that not following this rule theoretically may impact your data. However, as I read somewhere, if you disable this caching - you shall be save to pull the device out without clickign "Safe......".
Hardware-wise - pulling a valid USB device shouldn't cause any electrical issues (unlike inserting certain USB devices), however I also remember my home PC went off often when pulling certain USB devices out. Having said that, I almost sure that has been caused by some USB driver-OS issues or older on-board USB controllers. My new PC motherboard has no issues pulling the same USB devices that were not safe on the older one.

Alex

Rick Aguinaldo · #5 Post by **Rick Aguinaldo** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 1:48 pm

Arcing.

On a couple of occassions, the "generic mass storage device" was released after opening my browser again and I clicked on the other drives. I guess this somewhat refreshed the system and freed the "hung" state of the thumb drive. I don't know if this will work for you, but if all else fail to "safely remove the USB mass storage device", what's a few minutes of waiting to shutdown the computer compared to probable loss by yanking the flashdrive out from the USB socket?

sugo · #6 Post by **sugo** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:39 pm

Once a while when I kept seeing "Try stopping the device again later." message, I would log out of XP and log back in. Usually that will do the trick.

NS · #7 Post by NS » Sat Jul 15, 2006 11:03 pm

sugo wrote:Once a while when I kept seeing "Try stopping the device again later." message, I would log out of XP and log back in. Usually that will do the trick.

sugo,

i tried to log out but the comp refused to boot and show me a dark screen until i plugged out the USB drive and then it will boot to windows then when i plug it back in, the comp can detect the drive and when i want to plug it out, the same problem persists. The problem only go away if i used a 2.0 USB port hub and connect my USB drive to the hub. I can't connect the drive directly to my computer and eject it at all.

What software should i download to make the USB direct eject from my comp? Microsoft or IBM?

#8 Post by **BillMorrow** » Mon Jul 17, 2006 11:54 pm

windows seems to sieze some devices and not let go..

there is a small utility called "unlocker" that will, usually, stop whatever process is still associated with whatever USB device you want to stop..

i suggest stopping anything that uses power..
"thumb" drives i don't think fall into that category..

#9 Post by **archer6** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:07 pm

sugo wrote:Once a while when I kept seeing "Try stopping the device again later." message, I would log out of XP and log back in. Usually that will do the trick.

My experience when I get that same message is I usually have a windows explorer window open, or sometimes I have just closed it. I find that if I make sure to close it and then allow a little "response time" (just a few moments) then the USB flash drive is easily stopped.

christopher_wolf · #10 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 7:10 pm

Dash nining explorer.exe and then re-runing it should work as well.

NS · #11 Post by NS » Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:16 am

christopher_wolf wrote:Dash nining explorer.exe and then re-runing it should work as well.

Chris: What is Dash nining? sorry, my english is super crappish so pls explain in basic english.

emm... Now presently, what i do to remove that USB thing is to switch off everything before plugging it out and the USB drive is burning hot. Arggg!!!

#12 Post by **carbon_unit** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:35 pm

NS wrote:
christopher_wolf wrote:Dash nining explorer.exe and then re-runing it should work as well.
Chris: What is Dash nining? sorry, my english is super crappish so pls explain in basic english.

emm... Now presently, what i do to remove that USB thing is to switch off everything before plugging it out and the USB drive is burning hot. Arggg!!!

Don't feel bad. I know english pretty well and I don't know what "Dash nining" is either. It must be a typo.

JHEM · #13 Post by **JHEM** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 1:29 pm

Unix command shorthand, means to kill a process.

Regards,

James

motoperpetuo · #14 Post by **motoperpetuo** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:40 am

Rick Aguinaldo wrote:Arcing.

On a couple of occassions, the "generic mass storage device" was released after opening my browser again and I clicked on the other drives. I guess this somewhat refreshed the system and freed the "hung" state of the thumb drive. I don't know if this will work for you, but if all else fail to "safely remove the USB mass storage device", what's a few minutes of waiting to shutdown the computer compared to probable loss by yanking the flashdrive out from the USB socket?

to each his own, but it would drive me insane to have to go through the "safely remove" process or even reboot everytime i want to remove my flashdrive. i just make sure it's optimized for quick removal.

to do this in XP, right click the flashdrive in windows explorer and choose "properties." then choose the Hardware tab. select your flashdrive from the list of devices that appears, then click the Properties button. next click the Policies tab. make sure that "Optimize for quick removal" is selected, and you should be good to start yanking, "safely remove hardware" be [censored]. at least, this has always worked for me.

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