Safely remove?

A

Alex Clayton

Safely remove?
In playing around with a couple external drives on a couple Win.7 machines
today I noticed the safely remove seems to be gone? I never used it on my
Vista anyway, but when I was looking at something else on the right click
menu I noticed it was not there. Did they move it, or just decide that you
don't need to use it any more?
 
S

Stubbo of Oz

Safely remove?
In playing around with a couple external drives on a couple Win.7 machines
today I noticed the safely remove seems to be gone? I never used it on my
Vista anyway, but when I was looking at something else on the right click
menu I noticed it was not there. Did they move it, or just decide that you
don't need to use it any more?
Its present in my Win 7 system - but in the systray's hidden icons.

Its also in the right click menu with the name "Eject"
 
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On Tue, 5 Jan 2010 19:41:28 -0800, "Alex Clayton"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Safely remove?
> In playing around with a couple external drives on a couple Win.7 machines
>today I noticed the safely remove seems to be gone? I never used it on my
>Vista anyway, but when I was looking at something else on the right click
>menu I noticed it was not there. Did they move it, or just decide that you
>don't need to use it any more?

Its present in my Win 7 system - but in the systray's hidden icons.

Its also in the right click menu with the name "Eject"
Same here, works fine. It just requires that you click on the little up-arrow to see the hidden icons in the system tray. Then click on it like you would have before.

//Steve//
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Alex.

In Disk Management, right-click on that Disk # - NOT on the volume letter -
and click Policies. Is it set to Optimize for quick removal? Or for
performance? If it is optimized for quick removal, you probably won't see -
or need - the "safely remove" button. The cache will be quickly emptied
after every write, so the drive can be removed immediately without risk of
loss of not-yet-written data.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
Joined
Jan 6, 2010
Messages
9
Reaction score
1
Hi, Alex.
In Disk Management, right-click on that Disk # - NOT on the volume letter -
and click Policies. Is it set to Optimize for quick removal? Or for
performance? If it is optimized for quick removal, you probably won't see -
or need - the "safely remove" button. The cache will be quickly emptied
after every write, so the drive can be removed immediately without risk of
loss of not-yet-written data.
I've unfortunately found that setting not to be 100% reliable. I have and use several external hard drives, all of which are configured to be optimized for quick removal. Still, I have had situations where it takes up to a minute for the drive to be "ejectable." Although it does help, it isn't infallible, so I still recommend to users that they use the "Eject" or similar feature to make sure the cache has been flushed.

//S//
 
A

Alex Clayton

R. C. White said:
Hi, Alex.

In Disk Management, right-click on that Disk # - NOT on the volume
letter - and click Policies. Is it set to Optimize for quick removal? Or
for performance? If it is optimized for quick removal, you probably won't
see - or need - the "safely remove" button. The cache will be quickly
emptied after every write, so the drive can be removed immediately without
risk of loss of not-yet-written data.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
I don't know where disk management is? I just plugged one I had been using
in again, it still does not show on the right click menu like it did in
Vista, so I guess it's set to not need it. I never used it anyway, I was
just curious as to why it was no longer there.
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Alex.
I don't know where disk management is?
Ever since Windows 2000, Disk Management has been THE tool to manage disks -
and anything else that can be assigned a "drive" letter, including thumb
drives, card readers, digital cameras, network drives... But Microsoft
buried access to DM (same initials as Device Manager, but NOT the same
thing!) under so many mouse-clicks that even many Windows veterans haven't
found it yet, 9 years later. :>(

The official way for newbies to reach Disk Management in Win7 is: Start |
Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk
Management. But this opens DM inside the Microsoft Management Console, with
so much other stuff around it that I feel like I'm working through a
keyhole. :>(

My favorite way is simply to click Start, type diskmgmt.msc, and press
Enter.

Either way, you'll need to furnish Administrator credentials because you
might be doing some serious work on the computer system. And, either way,
Maximize the window and the Status column so that you can actually see what
it's trying to tell you. (Sadly, these settings are not "sticky" and you'll
have to adjust them again each time you start DM.) By default, DM shows the
Volume List at the top and the Graphical View at the bottom; both tell us a
LOT and they complement each other.

Note that the Volume List is organized alphabetically, including the Name
(label) of each volume, if you have created a name for it. (I highly
recommend creating a name for each volume; just right-click on the volume,
choose Properties and type the name you want into the box at the top. This
gets written to the disk and does not change if you re-assign drive letters,
either intentionally or unintentionally by connecting or disconnecting
devices.)

The Graphical View is arranged by device, starting with HDDs, which it
refers to by Disk NUMBER, starting with Disk 0, not by letters. On each
disk, it shows all the partitions that have been created. After the HDDs,
it lists Removable devices, such as thumb drives, and then CD/DVD drives.
Right-click on the far-left column to see the context menu with Properties
at the bottom. The next screen should include a Policies tab for removable
devices, but not for fixed HDDs.

Disk Management is one of my favorite utilities. It can do so much - but
few users have discovered it. :>(

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
A

Alex Clayton

R. C. White said:
Hi, Alex.


Ever since Windows 2000, Disk Management has been THE tool to manage
disks - and anything else that can be assigned a "drive" letter, including
thumb drives, card readers, digital cameras, network drives... But
Microsoft buried access to DM (same initials as Device Manager, but NOT
the same thing!) under so many mouse-clicks that even many Windows
veterans haven't found it yet, 9 years later. :>(

The official way for newbies to reach Disk Management in Win7 is: Start |
Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk
Management. But this opens DM inside the Microsoft Management Console,
with so much other stuff around it that I feel like I'm working through a
keyhole. :>(

My favorite way is simply to click Start, type diskmgmt.msc, and press
Enter.

Either way, you'll need to furnish Administrator credentials because you
might be doing some serious work on the computer system. And, either way,
Maximize the window and the Status column so that you can actually see
what it's trying to tell you. (Sadly, these settings are not "sticky" and
you'll have to adjust them again each time you start DM.) By default, DM
shows the Volume List at the top and the Graphical View at the bottom;
both tell us a LOT and they complement each other.

Note that the Volume List is organized alphabetically, including the Name
(label) of each volume, if you have created a name for it. (I highly
recommend creating a name for each volume; just right-click on the volume,
choose Properties and type the name you want into the box at the top.
This gets written to the disk and does not change if you re-assign drive
letters, either intentionally or unintentionally by connecting or
disconnecting devices.)

The Graphical View is arranged by device, starting with HDDs, which it
refers to by Disk NUMBER, starting with Disk 0, not by letters. On each
disk, it shows all the partitions that have been created. After the HDDs,
it lists Removable devices, such as thumb drives, and then CD/DVD drives.
Right-click on the far-left column to see the context menu with Properties
at the bottom. The next screen should include a Policies tab for
removable devices, but not for fixed HDDs.

Disk Management is one of my favorite utilities. It can do so much - but
few users have discovered it. :>(
Damn!! I guess I will just leave it alone if I have to do that to get at it.
Sounds like someone like me could get into trouble with it. <G>
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Alex.
I guess I will just leave it alone if I have to do that to get at it.
You must have missed this line:

It's well worth the investment of time! You will reap dividends, not just
for today or this week, but for as long as you keep using computers - which
might be for the rest of your life.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
A

Alex Clayton

R. C. White said:
Hi, Alex.


You must have missed this line:


It's well worth the investment of time! You will reap dividends, not just
for today or this week, but for as long as you keep using computers -
which might be for the rest of your life.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
Yes I did miss that. I was reading the other steps and all I could think of
was all the ways I could screw something up trying. <G>
I just opened it from the start menu, plugged in one of the ED's.
Has a whole page of "stuff" nothing I have any clue what to do with though.
I have no idea what most of the stuff it's showing even means. I know it's
FAT32 and understand the percentage used and free, but there is a lot of
other stuff there I have no idea what it means. I guess if it is ever
screwed up, and I can remember this, I know how to get to the page anyway.
I went back to your previous post and did manage to find what you were
talking about, and it is set for quick removal, not better performance. I
had never heard of or seen this before.
Is there any real up side to the better performance? Does that mean it
works faster?
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Alex.

As I said, Microsoft originally buried DM so deeply that even many experts
never found it. More users know about it now, but still too few. And, yes,
like any powerful tool, it can do harm as well as good if not used
carefully. That's why it won't run without specific Administrator approval.
But if you run it often, as I do, you might want to create a shortcut and,
in the shortcut's Properties, click Advanced and Run as administrator, so
that you don't have to see the prompt each time. I don't really recommend
this because it probably is best to be reminded each time.
Is there any real up side to the better performance? Does that mean it
works faster?
As usual, "it depends". You probably are familiar with the workings of a
cache or buffer system. As an example, when trying to pump 20 gallons of
water through a pipe that can only move 1 gallon per minute, the pump is
going to be busy for 20 minutes, even if the pipe could pump out 10 gallons
per minute. But if you put a 20-gallon holding tank between the pump and
the small pipe, the pump could fill that tank in 2 minutes and then go on to
a different job while the small pipe slowly empties the holding tank.

Your computer's hard drive cache is like the holding tank. Your fast CPU
can send data many times faster than your thumb drive - or even your hard
drive - can write it to the disk. With caching turned on, the CPU can send
the data and then turn its attention to other matters while the drive writes
the data - quickly, but not nearly as quickly as the CPU sent it. If you
unplug the device before the cache is fully written, you will lose some of
the data.

So, if you do a lot of large writes to the disk (when backing up a big
partition, for example), you could lose a lot of unwritten data by "pulling
the plug" too soon. But if everything you send to the device is in short
bursts, such as when you are manually updating a database, there's not much
danger of loss - and not much gain from using the cache, anyhow. The write
cache is not very big, so it typically gets emptied in a second - or less.
(No, I don't really know how big it is.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
A

Alex Clayton

R. C. White said:
Hi, Alex.

As I said, Microsoft originally buried DM so deeply that even many experts
never found it. More users know about it now, but still too few. And,
yes, like any powerful tool, it can do harm as well as good if not used
carefully. That's why it won't run without specific Administrator
approval. But if you run it often, as I do, you might want to create a
shortcut and, in the shortcut's Properties, click Advanced and Run as
administrator, so that you don't have to see the prompt each time. I
don't really recommend this because it probably is best to be reminded
each time.


As usual, "it depends". You probably are familiar with the workings of a
cache or buffer system. As an example, when trying to pump 20 gallons of
water through a pipe that can only move 1 gallon per minute, the pump is
going to be busy for 20 minutes, even if the pipe could pump out 10
gallons per minute. But if you put a 20-gallon holding tank between the
pump and the small pipe, the pump could fill that tank in 2 minutes and
then go on to a different job while the small pipe slowly empties the
holding tank.

Your computer's hard drive cache is like the holding tank. Your fast CPU
can send data many times faster than your thumb drive - or even your hard
drive - can write it to the disk. With caching turned on, the CPU can
send the data and then turn its attention to other matters while the drive
writes the data - quickly, but not nearly as quickly as the CPU sent it.
If you unplug the device before the cache is fully written, you will lose
some of the data.

So, if you do a lot of large writes to the disk (when backing up a big
partition, for example), you could lose a lot of unwritten data by
"pulling the plug" too soon. But if everything you send to the device is
in short bursts, such as when you are manually updating a database,
there's not much danger of loss - and not much gain from using the cache,
anyhow. The write cache is not very big, so it typically gets emptied in
a second - or less. (No, I don't really know how big it is.)

RC

[Lazarus Long]
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
Thanks. I had seen the terms you just used, but no, I really did not know
what it all meant. Now I understand it a lot better. The thumb drives are
just used to move very small stuff, like a report. The EHD, are loaded with
all the important stuff I don't want to lose, so the first time I use one
there is 5 or even 10 Gigs of stuff moving in. It does take a while but I
have always just let it go or done other stuff while it ran, until it tells
me everything has been copied. Now days it's just a matter of adding new
stuff, so I will just leave things as they are. It was interesting though, I
now know what a few more terms mean. Thanks!!!
 
C

Char Jackson

Disk Management is one of my favorite utilities. It can do so much - but
few users have discovered it. :>(
RC, how would you compare Disk Management in 7 to DM in XP? I'm still
running XP on my own PC and about the only task I use DM for is to
assign or change drive letters. For everything else disk-related I use
Acronis Disk Director, which is far more capable than XP's DM. Have
they souped up DM for 7?
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Char.

Each version of Windows since Win2K has had an improved, more-capable
version of Disk Management. I don't clearly recall just when each
improvement appeared, but it keeps getting better. At first, as you said,
it took over drive letter assignments, plus the functions previously done by
FDISK and Format.exe, and not much else.

Vista introduced one change that I don't much care for: Automatic creation
of the extended partition. My practice since I began dual-booting with
Win95/NT4 has been to create a single primary partition on each HDD and
include the rest of that disk in an extended partition, which I divide into
multiple logical drives.

Caution: Major digression in the next 3 paragraphs:
That arrangement came to me out of necessity at first. My 9 GB HDD was huge
for its day in about 1998. Win95/98 could not read NTFS and WinNT4 could
not read FAT32, so I had to limit each partition to the 2 GB that FAT(16)
could handle, because both Windows versions could read that. So I chose to
create the extended partition and make four 2 GB logical drives. That left
me with about 800 MB of my 9 GB, so that's the size I made a single primary
partition at the front of the disk, formatted FAT, and marked Active
(bootable). This became my System Partition, Drive C:. I ran Win95 Setup
to install Win95 on the first logical drive (D:), but it put its boot sector
and startup files (IO.sys, MSDOS.sys, Config.sys and Autoexec.bat) onto
Drive C: and the rest of Win95 into D:\Windows. Then I ran WinNT4 and it
rewrote the boot sector and added NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini to C:\
while installing the bulk of WinNT4 into E:\WinNT. So, C: was the System
Partition, D: was the boot volume for Win95 and E: was the boot volume for
WinNT4.

In the decade since, I've installed/deleted/reinstalled many versions of
Windows, but my basic disk organization has remained the same: one small
primary partition to serve as the System Partition, and multiple logical
drives to server as boot volumes for multiple Windows installations - and
for apps and data volumes.

Win2K and WinXP versions of Disk Management let me create the extended
partition directly. Starting in Vista, though, Disk Management
automatically creates the first 3 partitions as primary partitions. When
asked to create a 4th partition, it first creates an extended partition and
then creates a logical drive there. To get the single primary partition
that I want, I have to use the more-powerful DiskPart.exe shell - and its
command line interface.


Other changes in DM include showing multiple labels in the Status column.
In Win2K/XP, there could be only a single Status label, so if Drive C:
served as both System and Boot volume, only the System label was shown. In
Vista/Win7, we might see a half-dozen labels in the Status column: Healthy,
System, Active, Primary Partition (or Logical Drive), Boot, Page File, Crash
Dump.

DM can now Shrink and Extend a volume - but it can't move one; you'll still
need a third-party tool for that. It still irks me that DM can't remember
its display settings from one session to the next. I have to Maximize the
window and widen the Status column every time it runs. DM will also handle
dynamic disks and GPT disks, but I've not learned much about those.

Before Disk Management, I used Partition Manager, but I've hardly touched it
since DM arrived in Win2K, and not at all since WinXP. And I've never used
anything from Acronis, but I've heard many good reports about their
products.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64
 
C

Char Jackson

Vista introduced one change that I don't much care for: Automatic creation
of the extended partition. My practice since I began dual-booting with
Win95/NT4 has been to create a single primary partition on each HDD and
include the rest of that disk in an extended partition, which I divide into
multiple logical drives.
Yes, automatic-anything would be annoying. I stopped using logical
partitions many years ago when I migrated from 98SE to Win2k. Since
then I use a single primary partition per physical drive.

Thanks for the other info on Disk Management over the years. Although
it has apparently gained some functionality over time, it's still
seriously limited when compared to 3rd party tools, so I guess it's
still nothing more than a way to assign/change drive letters to me.
I'll stick with Acronis Disk Director.
 

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