Ejecting portable USB Hard Drive

[GoJoeGo]

I just purchased an X61 a week ago. I've been relatively satisfied with it but I have noticed that my portable USB hard drive (WD Passport 120 GB) doesn't actually "eject". When I use the "safely eject" option I get the "device safely ejected" message but my portable hard drive is still spinning (I can hear it). On desktops the hard drive fully ejects and the disk stops spinning completely.

Anyone else have this problem or know of a solution? Is this a Vista problem or hardware problem? Unplugging the hard drive while the disk is still spinning makes me a bit nervous, as I don't want to have the thing crash (it also makes this really pathetic whining sound). The hard drive is USB powered.

Thanks in advance.

[sugo]

My USB hard drives kept spinning after clicking "safely remove" device too on my T42. I think it's normal and nothing to worry about.

[tamasrepus]

I'm pretty sure this is normal.

[jevans111]

I just created a shorcut and typed in

%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

then placed the shortcut in my start menu, from here I righ click eject. But I think its the same as doing it from the my computer window. Iv been doing it this way fofr a couple of years now..... and it works just fine.

[vkyr]

See CD Tray Pal and a bunch of other tools like that...

http://www.e-systems.ro/cdtraypal.htm

...for HDDs things like Eject USB disks...

http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/usbeject.asp
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/us ... t_demo.zip