Does an external hard drive need to be turned off/removed?

Question

I have a 500 GB Western Digital external hard drive connected by USB to my port replicator to which my laptop is docked. Sometimes I am able to turn off/remove this HD through the "Safely Remove Hardware," but more often than not, it tells me it is unable to stop the drive and to try again later. I would try again later and get the same message, so usually I will just leave it connected to the port replicator. It will remain on, but my laptop will be off.

SO, the question is, does the HD ever need to be turned off? If not, I'd just rather not bother anymore. I just don't want it to crash/have a melt down if I do not remove it or turn it off every day.

Thanks.

Answer 1

First things first ..... we need to look at why your OS is unable to stop the drive.

My guess is that there are either files being transfered or there is a background "resident & stay" program on your PC that accesses it regularly.

Applications like disk defragmenters, anti malware programs, or even Windows itself should it have corrupted or outdated system files would easily cause this.

All said, I would look into that problem first or risk possible data loss on the external drive.

regards,
Philip T

Answer 2

if you have more number of partitions on it, that many number of times it will ask you to try again.. sometimes antivirus / antispyware / some background programs keep running using HD files.. in that case they give the message.. try again later.. its safe to turn off everything before removing.. !!