Detaching a portable HDD.

[Paul in Houston TX]

Actually it's not a question of power but of removing a data connection
during a set of write operations.

To make sure, I just plugged a USB drive in and safely removed it. Its
power LED is still lit.

Yea. I was thinking not to power off until writing was complete.
But if it did not have any led indicator lights, then it would be
difficult to tell if it was active or not.

 

[gufus]

I think there might be free SW to do it without unplugging. Or not.

Got a link?

I know.. search you lazy gufus. VBG

 

[Paul]

Got a link?

I know.. search you lazy gufus. VBG

I'm not convinced it is always possible to "wake" up
a disconnected device.

With my small collection of USB devices here, I've
had a few situations where a "safely removed" USB device,
simply did not want to be detected again. You could reboot.
You could reboot into a different OS. And the light would
*not* come on. As soon as the device is unplugged and
plugged in again, it works. This means, it is possible
to write *something* to the device, to make it
quite unresponsive (until power cycled).

While you could buy that third-party app, to
rescan the bus, I'm not certain it would always
work.

Paul

 

[gufus]

I'm not convinced it is always possible to "wake" up
a disconnected device.

Ah..

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yea. I was thinking not to power off until writing was complete.
But if it did not have any led indicator lights, then it would be
difficult to tell if it was active or not.

Good points, thanks.

I always take "power off" to mean "click on shutdown", but I realize
sometimes people might mean press the power switch. I agree that's not
the best thing to do

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Got a link?

I know.. search you lazy gufus. VBG

When I said "Or not" I meant to imply that I have no links or even
definite knowledge, or any plans to find such.

So anyone who wants a link will have to find their own, you lazy gufus


Fact is, I'm not sure such a utility would be of any real value...

 

[VanguardLH]

How can I re-mount a USB Drive without re-starting W7 (to find the
USB Drive)

Unplug the USB device then replug it for re-detection.

If you really meant how to remount a disconnected USB drive that is
still physically attached to the computer, Microsoft doesn't give you an
option to force a re-detection while still attached. You need 3rd party
software for that, like:

USB Safely Remove ($14)
http://safelyremove.com/

and another with more features:

Zentimo xStorage Manager ($30)
http://zentimo.com/

There is or was a freeware utility but don't recall it's name right now
(it was in some ancient discussion that discussed the above two
products) but I think it ran from a command line. For freeware to reset
and reconnect USB devices, ask in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup.

 

[Bob I]

This seems to work only with thumb drives.

And optical

 

[gufus]

There is or was a freeware utility but don't recall it's name right now
(it was in some ancient discussion that discussed the above two
products) but I think it ran from a command line. For freeware to reset
and reconnect USB devices, ask in the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup.

Thanks eh.. thats what I was looking for. http://safelyremove.com/
works good.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, Paul <[email protected]>
writes:
[]

With my small collection of USB devices here, I've
had a few situations where a "safely removed" USB device,
simply did not want to be detected again. You could reboot.
You could reboot into a different OS. And the light would
*not* come on. As soon as the device is unplugged and
plugged in again, it works. This means, it is possible
to write *something* to the device, to make it
quite unresponsive (until power cycled).

[]
Or to the interface chip, perhaps. (Or has this coma state survived a
power cycle? Even then, it could be the interface chip.)

 

[Paul]

With my small collection of USB devices here, I've
had a few situations where a "safely removed" USB device,
simply did not want to be detected again. You could reboot.
You could reboot into a different OS. And the light would
*not* come on. As soon as the device is unplugged and
plugged in again, it works. This means, it is possible
to write *something* to the device, to make it
quite unresponsive (until power cycled).

[]
Or to the interface chip, perhaps. (Or has this coma state survived a
power cycle? Even then, it could be the interface chip.)[/QUOTE]

A power cycle, using the switch on the back of the PC
will fix it.

Or, pulling the USB stick and reinserting it.

I was surprised that the next OS booting on the
computer, could not probe past it. So if you did a
shutdown and reboot (without affecting power), the
next OS might not be able to undo what the previous OS
did.

USB is a bit more generous with bus based resets,
and I would have thought that would be enough for the
next booting OS to be able to see the device. But
apparently, whatever state the USB stick gets into,
it stays deaf.

Paul