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Safely remove USB HDD impossible (NTFS issue?)

New to Win 7 64bit (Pro) and have had multiple / diverse issues trying to move data from old XP machine on to this new unit but am almost done. I'm on my 3rd different portable HDD and have finally found some success with a Buffalo USB 250gb HDD and formatting it NTSF so I could move some very large files over. The files transferred and I'm happy. But now I can't "safely eject" the device as it's not showing up as USB but instead as "Local Drive" (drive letter I:). In disk management it's showing as "Healthy" and "Primary Partition". It is listed as Disk 5, not removable but "Basic" and "Online". Obviously my "Safely Eject" icon is missing as I apparently don't have a removable object attached to the system. I suppose if I can find the device in Device Manager I could 'stop it' (or of course I can shut down the system and unplug it) but I'd like to be able to use this device frequently for backups (as I only have one HDD internal) but I don't want to have to go through all this hassle every time I plug it in.

I've google'd and Bing'd around enough to know that attaching USB storage is giving LOTS of people headaches in Win7 (and probably earlier OS's as well) so I know that I may have multiple issues at play.

Please let me know if I can provide other info or screen shots to help solve this problem. And THANK YOU for reading this far even if you can't help!

Steve

did you have to install software or was it recognised automatically?

I've seen this with DVD drives but never a USB one as both should be listed as removable.
What does it show as in device manager?

Heres the fix for the DVD drive but I dont know if it'll work for USB.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116

I'd reinstall the drivers and also consider changing the lettter assignment in case its confused.

nobus

how does it show in disk management? what options does it give you when selected?
you can also try this software, it gives better control over usb (free trial) : http://safelyremove.com/?pid=1

nsupport

ASKER

Tonto- The device was attached plug-and-play apparently as I didn't need to find any drivers to get it to become readable / writeable. For device manager information - see attached files. In the main device listing it is USB2.0-CRW. If you open device manager I *think* it's listed as USB-HS WDC 1600BB-22G USB Device in the "disk drives" area. I opened properties so you could see what's listed for it.

I will try to fnd new drivers for it as you suggested.
device.main.JPG

nsupport

ASKER

whooops- I posted before attaching the 2nd file. here's 2nd image.
device.manager.JPG

nobus

i never asked that - i asked what options it has in DISK management

nsupport

ASKER

Okay- last comment before I try the drivers change- sorry- that USB2.0-CRW is *not* the usb drive I attached but generic drivers setup on the machine to handle these connections I believe. "Drives" E, F, G, H are available but not attached. My drive attached as "I" and it is listed under the main ULT disks when you look at the Device Main image.

Also- I was able to rename the drive and call it "U" for what that's worth.

nsupport

ASKER

nobus- If you read my original post you'll see I detailed what shows in Disk Management.

Steve

@nsupport

Nice one. This is a problem with a system file on your PC.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/embeddedwindowscomponents/thread/cfffc7b6-5679-46fc-a1c9-4c08228b7b47/

You need to replace usbstor.sys as it is probably the cause.

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