I have an external 80GB laptop hard disk. When I connect it to my PC, everything goes fine. The problem occurs when I tried to disconnect it form my PC. It shows an message like "Cannot remove now, some programs are using the Hard Disk". Next time I connect it to my PC and try to open it. It shows me "Disk is corrupted or unreadable". It says format the Disk. When I do that, it says "the Disk connot be formatted". This hard disk is working on some PC's and in some others PC's it shows me the same message again.
Pls Hepl me.........

At present, I taking that Hard Disk to my friends house and getting it formatted and copy any stuff that I needed form my friend's PC. When I connect it to my PC. It works for the first time and while disconnecting it, evrything blows up.
I'm going mad with this hard disk. Whether the problem is with my hard disk or with my PC.

What the partition type you use on your external hdd? NTFS, FAT16 or FAT32.

For NTFS, you will have problem trying to "eject" the drive. That's because of the way NTFS works. I had my external hdd formated as NTFS too. But if I force disconnect it. It will works fine, not sure why your case is different.

For FAT16 or FAT32, it's not so robust. But ejecting it is not a problem. If you happen to force disconnect without ejecting, chances are you'll always get a corrupted partition.

Your case sounds more like FAT16 or FAT32. NTFS has almost 0% chance of getting corrupted, unless of cause you have bad sector on your hdd, especially near the boot sector or partition table.

Another speculation that you get the message "Cannot remove now, some programs are using the Hard Disk", is that your're using FAT32(which easily get corrupted), and you have some software install on your pc that's accessing the file on your external hdd, maybe backup software, or anti-visus/spyware alike. You can try see if it works properly in safe mode.

I'll always format in NTFS partion and what is the method to disconnect it if it refuses to quit. Normally I just plug it off. If I do that, from the next time it doesnt open. Actually I click on the desktop toolbar which show "Safely Remove USB Drive".
Since I have a Motorola Motorizr Z3 and Canon A540 which works on USB settings. They are working fine.
I suppose the problem is with the hard disk only.
But in some other systems it works excellent.

A lot of times I connect my external USB drive, open up a command prompt and change directory into a folder inside that drive, then I do other stuff, I forget about the command prompt window still being open and when I go to disconnect the drive, it tells me it can't do it because the drive is being used. At that point, I simply close the command prompt window and voila - I can disconnect the drive.

Maybe in your situation it's also something trivial like that.

This post has been edited by dserban: Sep 6 2007, 08:49 AM

Yes, you should always remove an external hard drive that is connected via USB by going to safely remove hardware and removing the device. Alternatively, there is a setting, I forget where, to set all hardware to maintain a safe state for removal.

~Viz

Sounds like there's a faulty part in ur drive because none of the NTFS drives I've touched had any corruptions.

xboxrulz

I always have this program on the computers that I use. Download Unlocker at:

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

This will allow you to unlock any process that is using the hard drive. Usually it's explorer.exe. Just right click on your external hard drive (in My Computer) and go to Unlocker. Select the process(es) that is locking up the hard drive. Then click on the Unlock button. Presto, you can now safely remove it

Thanks a lot guys. Now I have to check it out through WeaponX method. Since I dont have my 80GB hard disk with me right now. I gave it to my cousin to get it formatted.
Now this is another problem that, if the hard disk is working fine then I could format it. But when the hard disk is corrupted I cannot format it in my PC. It gives me a message "Format not complete" or similar to that.

Sounds like a bad sector at some critical section of the hard disk. Maybe be you can try partition the external hard disk and see if the problem still persist. For your case, after you partition, try not to use the first partition, use the second one to try out. If it works, then it must have been a bad sector

Another idea is that it could be something with the external case. Unlikely, but worth checking into. Sometimes USB ports don't provide enough power, and the drive heads start skipping. Or there could be a problem with the drive itself. Do you or your friend have another external case to try it in, or some way of attaching it as a slave drive? Then try to format from there. I did have a case once that had bad contact points with the USB cable, and it would corrupt large files when i tried to copy them.