Summary

Macrium Reflect Free Edition allows you to back up your entire computer and schedule backups. For a free program, you get incredibly powerful software that allows you to create effective backups. I want to start with a very subjective, personal opinion: Macrium Reflect Free is the best available free imaging solution for Windows. That being said there are quite a many alternatives for those searching for a free, easy to use imaging solution to create regular backups of your Windows installation.

This page discusses fixes and workarounds for an error message which is 'Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device. This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again.' When you try to safely remove a USB flash drive or an external hard drive from a computer. Also, to avoid a permanent data loss from a USB device after unsafely unplugging, use the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to make an instant recovery.

Follow the quick tutorial that has SOLVED 'this device is currently in use'. Roll down to the complete solutions.

Windows 7/Windows 10 Has Problems in Ejecting an External USB Drive

When you try to safely remove a USB flash drive or an external HDD from your computer by right-clicking the device icon in the system tray and choosing 'Safe to remove hardware', it's not always working. Some users say that an error message stops them from unplugging their device in this way because it's in use by other window or program. This is the full error message.

Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device

'This device is currently in use. Close any programs or windows that might be using the device, and then try again.'

How Do You React When a USB Mass Storage Device Which is Currently in Use?

The standard process to solve the 'Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device. This device is currently in use' should be like this:

Determine which program is currently running on the device and then close it.

However, it's not the real case as imagined. Most users didn't have anything opened or running program when they got that error message. As a result, they just ignored the error and simply disconnected the device with their hands.

Now the seemingly small problem gets big enough. As a consequence of abruptly removing a USB device that is currently used by a process, the device is going to suffer from an even more serious problem. You'll most likely to accept other USB issues, for example:

1. The external USB hard drive is not recognized after unplugging without safely ejecting.

2. The external USB hard drive is not accessible, access is denied. The file system displays as RAW.

3. The external USB hard drive cannot open for the second time you put it back on your computer.

Top tips

Download EaseUS hard drive recovery software whenever you find that the USB device has been horribly damaged due to the 'unsafe removal' and want to recover data from the device badly.

It's about three steps for retrieving data from a USB hard drive with the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. Best friends forever game download full version.

Step 1. Run USB data recovery software.

Connect the USB flash drive to your computer and launch EaseUS USB data recovery software on your PC. Select your USB drive which marks as a removable disk, and click 'Scan' to start finding your lost files.

Step 2. Scan all lost files from USB.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will thoroughly scan your USB flash drive and find all your lost data on it. After the scanning process, use the Filter feature to filter a specific file type. You can check and preview found USB files in this program.

Step 3. Restore all lost files from USB.

A double-click will allow you to preview the file results. Choose the target files and click 'Recover' to save them to a secure location on your PC or other external storage devices.

How to Fix 'The device is currently in use' and Safely Remove the USB Mass Storage Device?

If you have tried the unified approaches, including sign out and log on the system, restart the system once or twice but still failed to remove the error.

Let's go through the other three steps to disable the real program which is taking up the USB resource.

Step 1. Find the application that is currently using the USB device in Task Manager

1. Press 'Ctrl + Alt + Del' keys to bring up the Task Manager.
2. Access to the Task Manager, under the Process tab, locate the application(s) that are using your USB device.
3. Right-click on the selected application and choose 'End task'.

Step 2. Eject the USB in Disk Management

1. Right-click 'My Computer' (Windows 7) or 'This PC' (Windows 10) and click Manage.
2. Under Storage, click Disk Management.
3. Locate and right-click the USB device you want to remove and click Eject. (Note - If it's an external hard drive that you're going to disconnect in the Disk Management, you will get an option 'Offline'. The next time you put the drive back to the computer for use, you need to go back to the Disk Management and turn it to 'Online' state.)

Step 3. Eject the USB in Device Manager

1. Navigate to Start -> Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager.
2. Click Disk Drives. All the storage devices that are connected to your PC will be displayed.
3. Right-click the device that has the problem to eject, and then select Uninstall.
4. Click OK if you're told to confirm the operation.
5. Wait for the process finishing and then remove the device.

Other 'Problem Ejecting USB Mass Storage Device' Related Errors..

• Windows can’t stop your ‘Generic volume’ device because it is in use. Close any program or windows that might be using the device, and then try again later.
• The device 'Generic volume' cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device again later.
• Windows is unable to stop the device 'USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device'. Don't remove this device while it is still in use. Close any programs using this device and then remove it.

By the way, all the solutions given by this page are also applicable to the other three similar USB ejecting problems here.

People Also Ask

1. How do I eject a USB drive that is currently in use?

Eject the USB in Disk Management:

Right-click My Computer (Windows 7) or This PC (Windows 10) and click Manage. Locate and right-click the USB device you want to remove and click Eject. If it is an external hard drive that you're going to disconnect in the Disk Management, you will get an option Offline.

2. How do I force eject a hard drive in Windows 10?

First right-click on the start menu icon. then open disk management, find a disk you want to eject. Right-click on the disk name and in the options just click offline. Then go and safely remove the drive from the toolbar.

3. How can I tell what program is using my external hard drive? Divinity original sin 2 highlight characters.

To open the window, launch Process Monitor and let it monitor the system, preferably when you get unknown or abnormal disk access, then go to the Tools menu - File Summary. This window will show information about reads, writes, events, file access times and the path to the files causing the activity.

Creating backups of your data is a great idea for pretty much everyone. It makes life way easier in the event of a drive failure, and thanks to intuitive software, the whole ordeal is quite painless.

One way to back up your drive is to create an image, which is basically a compressed snapshot of your entire drive, OS and all. Images can be stored on external drives in the event of a failure and can be used to completely restore a PC when things go wrong. For more information about imaging, check out our comparison between drive imaging and drive cloning:

Hard drive imaging vs. cloning: What's the difference? .

Before you begin, you should prepare a place to save your drive images, because images can't be saved on the same drive you're imaging. You can use a secondary internal drive, a network location, or an external drive connected via USB.

Imaging software options

We've been using Macrium Reflect for a while and so far haven't found a reason to switch, but there are also plenty of other imaging options out there, including one built right into Windows 10.

AOMEI Backupper

Like Macrium Reflect, there is a fully-functional, free version of AOMEI that lets you create system images, back up hard drives, and clone drives. Its UI is super simple to use, and you can even set an automatic file sync that will keep your backup up to date.

Acronis True Image

There are a few buying options to choose from when it comes to Acronis — there is also a 30-day free trial — including subscription options that come with 50GB or 1TB of cloud storage. For just the cloning and imaging software, you'll spend about $40.

Download Macrium Reflect

Macrium Reflect has a free version that works great for casual users who want to make a single, full image of their hard drives. If you want to create scheduled images, whether incremental or differential, you'll have to upgrade to a paid plan.

The first step is to install Macrium Reflect on your PC.

1. Launch your web browser from the Start menu, desktop or taskbar.

2. Navigate to the Macrium Reflect website.

3. Click Download.

4. Click Home use.

5. Click Save.

6. Click Run.

7. Click Download when you are satisfied with the options listed in the window. (I went with the default settings.)

8. Click Yes, and your download will begin.

9. Click Next when the download is finished.

10. Click Next.

11. Click I accept the terms….

12. Click Next.

13. Click Next.

14. Click No or type your information if you want to register Macrium Reflect.

15. Click Next.

16. Click Next.

17. Click Install.

18. Click Finish.

How to image your hard drive

Now that Macrium Reflect is installed, you can get busy imaging your drive. If you're saving the image to an external hard drive, ensure it's plugged into your PC before you begin. Note that you cannot save the image to the same drive that is being imaged.

1. Launch Macrium Reflect from your Start menu, desktop or taskbar.

2. Click the drive you want to image. (In this case, I chose the drive that holds C: because it holds all the information required to restore my PC in the case of a failure. You can also image any other drives on your PC.)

3. Click Image this disk….

4. Click the browse button next to the Folder field. (It looks like three dots in a row.)

5. Choose a location to save the image.

6. Click OK.

7. Click Next.

8. Click the drop-down arrow beneath Select a Template for your Backup Plan.

9. Choose a schedule. (You can skip this step if you just want to create an image once or plan on scheduling things yourself. You'll have to upgrade to a paid plan if you want to set scheduled image backups.)

10. Click Next when you're satisfied with the scheduled backup options.

11. Click Finish.

12. Click OK.

The imaging process will now start. Depending on the size and type of the drive being imaged, this process can take awhile, but it is almost always faster than cloning a drive.

Restoring your PC from an image

In the event that some of your data is corrupted or your PC becomes infected with malware, you can restore from the drive image. If your PC still boots properly, you can simply use the Macrium app to make this happen. Make sure the storage location holding your images is connected before beginning these steps.

1. Launch Macrium Reflect from your Start menu, desktop or taskbar.

2. Click the Restore tab near the top-left corner of the window. Macrium will list images it finds in the main frame of the window.

3. Click Verify Image when you've found an image you'd like to restore from.

4. Click Verify.

5. Click Restore Image when the verification process is complete.

6. Click Next after ensuring the destination disk is the drive you want to restore. The partitions and drives should appear similar.

7. Click Finish. If you're restoring a secondary drive, the process will begin. If you're restoring the drive that contains your OS, Macrium will prompt you to start a Windows PE environment.

8. Click Run from Windows PE. You'll be prompted to restart your PC, which you can do when ready. Upon the restart, the Macrium Reflect System Recovery should boot automatically and your image will be restored.

If your PC is in a state where you can boot but are immediately taken to a blue screen, there should be an option that lets you restore your PC from an image backup. Make sure the location where the image is saved is attached, choose to restore from an image, and follow the instructions to get your PC running again.

Performing hard drive swaps

If you're thinking about swapping out a hard drive in your PC, you should consider drive cloning. Yes, you can use a drive image to set Windows up on a brand new hard drive, but it involves a secondary recovery method that's usually saved on a separate flash drive. For an easier time, you can clone everything straight to a new drive before putting it into your device.

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