I have an external HDD attached by a USB cable to my laptop. I'm not running ANY programs and yet when I try to "Safely Remove Hardware", I get the error "The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped because a program is still accessing it." I've logged off and logged back on and still no success. Last time I tried to turn off the external HDD but it caused a huge problem. I had to remove the drive from the CASE and reformat it on my desktop computer as a secondary HDD because it was just not formatting as an external. Why is this happening and how do I fix it? :-?Laptop make and model? Operating system? USB 1 or 2? Hard drive make, model and age? Did it ever work? Any information to work on at all?  

See below.LAPTOP: Dell XPS M140 - 1.73GHz, 0.99 GB RAM - Intel Centrino - Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 2002 SERVICE Pack 2

USB: 2

External HDD: Galaxy TVisto - Western Digital 320 GB

TVisto is an external HDD that can be connected to the TV to watch Movies, Pictures and play Music. It can also hold other stuff like a normal HDD but that only shows when connected to the computer. I added movies and it worked fine. I reconnected it to my laptop to add more movies and when it was done I couldn't "Safely Remove.."

More info??I am having the same problem removing my flash memory drives.I am getting the same message above using a USB flash drive and  also these  other messages. See screen images below: (POSTED to Imageshack)

http://img100.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ejectusbproblem1xx5.jpg

http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ejectusbproblem1acx1.jpgThe problem the both of you may be experiencing may be caused by software that's running in the background.

Even though your computer is not showing any open applications...there may be programs like antivirus or backup software running in the background.

If you have any programs that are actively scanning these drives or programs that are constantly monitoring chages to your hard drive, then disable them and then try to safely remove your USB device.I turned off both my firewall and my virus software, the problem remained!
It has to be some Windows service, maybe indexing or some other. I wish
the operating system would tell the name of the program or service accessing
the drive! Process Explorer will tell you what you need to know...Process explorer help not working, how do I tell which drive is being accessed, and
by what process or object?More images from recommended software, process explorer and filemon:

process explorer

http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=processexplorerdevicemesb2.jpg

http://img61.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prossessexepdeverror2zd0.jpg


Filemon:

http://img524.imageshack.us/my.php?image=filemonitoraccesserrorsbl8.jpgLooks to me that drive has been corrupted...save your data and re-format it.If indexing service and/or fastopen.exe is running, disable it/them. Quote from: patio on June 10, 2007, 05:00:12 PM

Looks to me that drive has been corrupted...save your data and re-format it.