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USB Drive shows in explorer after it is removed.

Question

Thursday, August 9, 2018 6:58 PM

Hey,

I am running Windows 10 and had a Western Digital USB drive connected.

I could not eject it (no "eject" in the Explorer menu) so I unplugged it, and re-booted.

The Explorer still shows the USB drive (G:).

Here is a screen shot of my disk devices, and the Explorer.



Please advise.

Charles

Charles Brauer

All replies (3)

Thursday, August 9, 2018 9:36 PM

Plug the drive in again, see if it is working correctly, remove it properly (release first), and see if it then disappears from Explorer.

In Device Manager, are you sure that you have not selected "Show hidden devices"? Any USB drive you have ever plugged in then appears.

For future reference, when Windows will not let you safely remove a drive shut down the PC then unplug it.


Friday, August 10, 2018 7:39 AM

Hi,

Plug the USB device again and check the system tray icon for all devices that are on a hot-plug bus (e.g. USB). Right it to remove it safely.

If it displays in disk management. Try delete the related USB Device Registry Entries to have a try. Please refer to the following link to find related USB Device Registry Entries and delete.
USB Device Registry Entries
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/jj649944(v=vs.85).aspx
Here is also a similar case for reference.
How can erase all history of USB connected drives and CD-ROMs from my registry?
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ac09fc49-21d4-4d1e-843d-c6dcd3ad91f1/how-can-erase-all-history-of-usb-connected-drives-and-cdroms-from-my-registry?forum=w7itproinstall
Please backup the registry key before we made any modifications to it.

Regards,

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
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Friday, August 10, 2018 3:27 PM

The link you reference for USB Device Registry Entries is out-of-date for Windows 10.

My registry does not have an entry for: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\USBFN

I plugged in the Western Digital USB Passport drive and it show up in Disk Devices. 

I then selected "uninstall" and it disappeared from the Devices menu.

It still appears in the Explorer as drive G:

Notice that there is no "eject" menu item!

Your instructions were not helpful.

Charles

Charles Brauer