Windows 7

That may be the answer to win7 not giving the message
about scanning the device but it's just another case of another unneeded step with Win7. As long as the computer is not reading or writing to the device there is no danger in just disconnecting it. I have been pulling SD cards, flash drives, and GPSr since they have been on the market and have never had a problem.

I was previously running xp on my pc & laptop and decided to upgrade both to Windows 7 Ultimate. It'll have extended support till January 2020 and by then the way technology is evolving it'll be time anyway to upgrade both systems.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

As chewbacca, I've never ever encountered that problem.

I opted for an solid state drive (ssd) along with a conventional hard drive for everything else other than my programs. It takes 25 seconds to completely boot up and shutting down is done with a blink of an eye.

I believe that by 2020 Microsoft will have introduced something superior to windows 8.1 and till then Windows 7 which has an excellent track record is performing solidly.

Cheers

There's no telling what the OS is doing to the data, in my experience. I've had perfectly good drives that I had not used in days, but I had left plugged into the PC, completely die due to corrupted MFT because they lost power and were not ejected from the system properly. It's not worth the risk, IMHO.

Which brings up another point. I wouldn't leave a drive plugged into a USB port for longer than necessary if you value the data.

For those that enjoy learning and tweaking.

Have fun

http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-7/

Canuk,

I agree. Windows 7 has a very good track record. Tried Win 8, switched back to Win 7.

One thing I will say is that I have never trashed a flash drive by unplugging it without "Safely Removing" the drive. If the OS isn't writing to the drive, you can't hurt it by removing power from it. Make sure that you have disabled caching of data on your portable drives and you won't have problems.

but can someone tell me how to disable a 3 1/2 floppy can' remember. (besides opening the case and unplugging.) Thanks.

Disable floppy in the BIOS. Typical key to press (while booting up) to get into the BIOS are F1, F10, or Del. If it's not one of those, find out what key you must press to get there.

Went to start then control panel and down the list found 31/2 floppy and disabled it nor more problem.

Or, go into Device Manager and disable it from there.

That was your first mistake leaving a drive plugged in while turning the computer on and off. As I said before I have been unplugging drives for years with no problem, I just make sure the light on the drive isn't indicating any activity. Although I know a couple of guys that leave an external hard drive plugged in with software installed on them and have had no problems.

I have been using computers with external drives "plugged in" ever since I got my first external drive.

I purchased the drive specifically for the purpose of having a computer software package called Instaback from the PCMag utilities. This utility would automatically create a backup every time any file in a folder that I had designated was saved on the computer. I let it keep 10 down versions of files. This was back when my kids were doing term papers and had a tendency to mess up the current version.

I have never had a problem. I usually leave my computer on all the time, but windows "updates" me periodically and does a restart. As I sit her now there are three USB drives plugged in on my two desktop computers.

Jgermann, I also have an external HD plugged and powered up. But, unlike you, I have turned off the 'auto-update' feature in Windows. I got tired of it deciding to re-boot my computer anytime it felt like it regardless of me using it. Now it downloads the update then asks me to install it. When I'm not using the computer, I install it.

A lot of people using computers don't understand how they work so they can be victimized by miss-information. They can also misinterpret good information. My Grandmother once bought rubber plugs to put in all of her unused AC outlets to keep the electricity from leaking out. Now my grandmother wasn't stupid, she just didn't know how electricity worked.

While it is true that unplugging an external drive while it is being accessed will corrupt it most of the time. You can unplug an idle drive anytime without risk.

if u have a program open - like Windows Explorer - and it is accessing the USB 'drive' and u pull it out, it will cause this problem. If u close all the programs, u r doing what the safely remove does - it checks to see if a program has the device open.

It knows this from data written in the root of the device. The reason Windows wants to scan the device is that it sees this data and knows it wasn't properly closed out. The scan will return no errors found.

If something was being written to the device when it was removed u will have errors and may be a non-readable or bricked device if the scan can't fix it.

I have done so many times - really not meaning or wanting to.

However, I always write in my FAQs, posts, etc. that one "safely disconnect" their devices - as they will know for certain that their is no delayed write that might cause a problem.

I would rather suggest a step that might not be always need than to cause people to just pull plugs. Too often, I have seen situations on my computer where something grabs control of the CPU(s) for a while - then other running processes finish.