Recently I’ve reformatted my hard drive because it is too slow and corrupted. Moreover, after my laptop was infected by JambanMu virus, everything wasn’t operating fine even after cleaning. After Windows installation, I restored all my files and reinstalled the required third party software that I often use from my external hard drive. When everything was done, I tried to safely remove my external hard drive but was unable to. Every time I go to the Safely Remove Icon to safely remove my external hard drive, I get this error message “The device ‘Generic Volume’ cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later.
I can wait for hours but still unable to safely remove my external hard drive. Weird thing was, I closed all the running programs, and I can still see my external hard drive LED light blinking. It means there is activity and something is accessing the external hard drive. The best tool to find out what is accessing the external hard drive is Unlocker.
I right click on my external hard drive letter and select Unlocker. Clearly Unlocker shows that explorer.exe is accessing the folders in my external drive.
I click the Unlock All button, and tried to safely remove my hard drive, I still get the message “The device ‘Generic Volume’ cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later.” Again I use Unlocker to check what is accessing my drive, it still shows EXPLORER.EXE but this time it is accessing a different folder. The only solution I can think then is to kill explorer.exe process using Windows Task Manager and then launch Safely Remove Hardware window using command line. It worked! However, this is only a temporary solution and not a real solution to this problem. To fix this problem, I need to know why is explorer.exe accessing all my folders in my external hard drive?
In Services, there is an “Indexing Service” which indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files through flexible querying language. I stopped and disabled the service, still didn’t fix the problem. I also disabled Offline Files and System Restore, still the same problem. Finally I decided to install an anti-virus program and it detected that my explorer.exe is infected by JambanMu, Alman or Almanahe virus! I was shocked to know about this because I just reinstalled Windows with third party programs and restored files. The chances of being infected by Almanahe virus is quite slim. After a while, I also found out that many of my executable files (EXE) are infected by Almanahe virus. It seems that Almanahe virus can and will infect executable files.
The next thing I did was tried using AVG Win32/Alman Removal Tool to disinfect the virus from my EXE files. After scanning and cleaning with the removal tool, I noticed that my external drive LED doesn’t blink when I am not accessing the drive and I can use Safely Remove Hardware. What I learn from this experience is EXPLORER.EXE shouldn’t access external hard drives. If it does, very likely a virus has infected the explorer.exe
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Thanks for the good tips. I am facing “USB device Over Current Detected” Error, do have any idea what can be the cause?
Thanks to the italian guy. It worked!!
I had this problem on windows 7. To solve it i just opened libraries right clicked documents left clicked properties then clicked restore defaults.
Done the same with pictures, music, videos and that was that problem solved. Safely removed external hard drive from USB. It worked for me on windows 7 don’t know about XP or vista though
Pls kindly help on how to solve this. This is the message i get after closing all the opened program and try to eject any device from my USB (WINDOWS CAN’T STOP ‘GENERIC VOLUME’ DEVICE BECAUSE ITS IN USE. CLOSE ANY PROGRAME OR WINDOWS THAT MIGHT BE USING THE DEVICE THE TRY AGAIN LATER).
My operating system is vista.
Thanks alot for your help.
Bolanle Balogun
usb not recognized error windows xp
I too has the problem.
Mine was corrected when I dumped AVG. :-)
Until I uninstalled AVG I had the problem even
with the Resident Shield shut off. Or whatever
it’s called. It’s history now. I’m back with Avast.
I dumped it awhile back when It came up with
a bunch of false positives. Now I’m back with
it.
Even I am getting the same problem while removing the pen drive or hard drive from the system . I am using windows 7 & gettin problem after installation of windows 7…..can some one suggest the solution…..
I have a finding today regarding the problem.
System: windows XP
> insert USB disk but without access it, it can be removed successfully.
> insert USB disk, if I viewed directory with picture and video in it. Then removing is always failed because the the problem “problem ejecting usb mass storage device” (even i already closed all windows).
> finally, i found the preview feature in xp cause the problem. The preview locked the file even you close the window. (need more investigation)
> solution: unregister preview of picture, video like follow, problem goes away:
unregister video (*.avi, *.wmv etc):
regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll
unregister picture (*.pic)
regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
After that, you can still open these files using the default programmer. But they don’t lock these files after you close those applications.
Of course, using “Unlocker” tools to solve the problem is also a solution.
Jun-an Liu
Thanx a Lot……..!!!
I was having trouble ejecting my Transcend StoreJet 25M portable HDD on the very 1st day I had purchased it.
I had started getting mad………
But, thanx to you, my drive was ejected in seconds!
THANX!!!
Fantastic. Problem has been resolved with Unlocker.
You can also get the problem ejecting USB Mass Storage Device error if XP/Vista simply has a handle to something on the drive. (UNRELATED to VIRUSES). This is actually a very common problem. M$ recommends there tool Process Explorer Currently V 11.33 to find and shut down the handles…Or they even mention Unlocker.
But as always good to have and run security software.
VEry helpful software. I had a hidden folder name as runauto…
It’s a virus that that create autorun.inf in my external harddisk. =) Don’t know what it did, but glad it’s gone.
thanks :) helpful article.. but wonder if i got a virus now.. hmm!
como puedo hase para qitar una cartha de expulcion de tres a
Unica soluzione è quella di chiudere e riaprire il processo explorer.exe e poi procedere con la normale disconnessione.
A me funziona sempre.
can anyone help me!!! urgent! when i access the properties of \\\”My Computer\\\” its not registered to my Name…… It was already \\\”Vilehm Corporation…. how do u restore it?
As an additional measure I suggest using free command line tool (sync/dsync) that will flush drive caches and will therefore complete pending write operations for sure. Sometimes it is quite useful to speed up safe drive removal, especially in cases of heavy overall computer activity.
well ,Thats not good to just unplug your usb when in use because it may cause data loss . and that happened to one of my pendrives. and I had to go to shop where I bought it and said that this is not working (faking hehe) and they gave me a new pendrive.
but it is okey to plug out if the hardware policy is set to optimize for quick removal which decreases the speed of the pendrive very much.
you can change the hardware policy by
1.right click on the hardware
2.properties (select)
3.then hardware tab
4.choose the pendrive name or usually manufacturers name is here as the pendrives name
click and then properties and policies.
enjoy :-)
If that happens I’l just plug it out.
Nothing to worry about.
From one of a school institute which I provide computer support. The whole school is infected by virus. LOL..
Raymond, where did you get those virus from?
I have the similar problem in my Windows Vista and it’s happen all the time. Just to share how I solve the problem here:
planetmy.com/blog/windows-can%e2%80%99t-stop-your-%e2%80%98generic-volume%e2%80%99-device-because-a-program-is-still-using-it/