Comments on: Help me get my drive unplugged!

Question: Help me get my drive unplugged!

antifuse — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:35:51 -0800

How can I find out what application is locking my external USB drive in Windows XP?

Ok, here's the long and the short of it: I've got an external hard drive (a normal 3.5" drive in a Vantec Nexstar 3 enclosure). I've closed all the apps that have files open on said drive. When I try to "eject" it in XP (make it safe for unplugging) it says that an application is still using a file on the drive. How can I find out what application is holding that file open? I know, I can just shut down the PC, but I'd like to be able to disconnect the thing without having to shutdown every time! Are there any apps that tell you what file handles are open for each running process? I tried FileMon from SysInternals, but that tells you more as things are being opened, not after the fact what is being *held* open.

By: mattdini

mattdini — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:49:35 -0800

WhoLockMe is a nice small program that will tell you what process is currently locking a file.

http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/index.php

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 01:08:43 -0800

I have WhoLockMe, and I quite enjoy it... the problem is, I don't know *what* file is locked. Windows just tells me "The drive cannot be unplugged because a file is in use" or some such thing.

By: melorama

melorama — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:01:12 -0800

You want to use Unlocker.

By: melorama

melorama — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:03:40 -0800

Also, WhoLockMe *does* tell you what file is locked.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:48:59 -0800

WhoLockMe doesn't seem to do the recursive queries on drives the way it does on directories.

A heavier weight but effective solution is getting ProcessExplorer, do Find -> File Handle or DLL... -> and search for E:\ or whatever the letter is.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:40:45 -0800

As aubilenon said, you can't do wholockme on a whole drive, unfortunately. At least, it doesn't seem to do anything. Unlocker, on the other hand, is hella sweet. And it seems to do the same thing that ProcExp does as well. Cheers, fellas.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 03:49:54 -0800

Also, I'm using "fellas" in a generic, non-gender-specific way as I haven't bothered to look up your profiles :)

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 04:27:36 -0800

Now I want to use Unlocker too.

Okay, someone, lock one of my files without telling me!

By: mattdini

mattdini — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 10:42:19 -0800

Off to download Unlocker and replace WhoLockMe on my USB stick.. thanks!

By: blue_wardrobe

blue_wardrobe — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:34:30 -0800

My greatest culprit for this is Explorer. If I am in the folder (obvious), or if I have the folder selected in the left hand folder view (less obvious).

By: antifuse

antifuse — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 01:14:21 -0800

Yeah, I'll usually kill explorer (all instances, which also requires restarting explorer from task manager in order to be able to disconnect the drive) and often even THAT doesn't work! Very frustrating. But unlocker looks like a little gem of a product!