It is fairly rare, but I have seen USB flash drives trashed by pulling them "unsafely".  It should only be possible if data was recently written to the drive, and it is because Windows sometimes caches some of what should be written (mostly directory info, I believe) and slips it in afterward.  If you pull the drive before that is complete, it's corrupted.  Of course if whatever thread is writing that straggling info doesn't tell Explorer that it's all done, Explorer says that it's not safe to remove.  

If you are sure nothing is open and you've given sufficient time for any applications to complete writing and close their processes or you never attempted to write anything, you are probably safe to pull a drive without "permission".  Just to make it more uncertain... MS Word (and the like) often create a temporary hidden file whenever a file is opened for recovery purposes, so if that file was created on the flash drive, the drive may have been written to without you knowing about it.  

Erich



On Monday, March 4, 2024 at 19:29, Deborah Fitchett eloquently inscribed:

> Tbh if a computer refuses to eject a flash drive I just pull it out. Then it'll
> complain, and I'll click "Okay", and that's the end of the matter. I've never
> seen any other consequences.
> 
> Does anyone know, could doing this even theoretically cause data
> corruption? Or is it just a safeguard to prevent people ejecting the drive
> while a file is open, then later trying to save the file and getting upset that
> they lost their work?
> 
> Deborah
> 
> -----Original Message----- From: Code for Libraries
> <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of charles meyer Sent: Sunday, March
> 3, 2024 9:03 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [CODE4LIB] Windows
> 10 - Safe to Eject Flash Drive
> 
> Caution: This email originated from outside our organisation. Do not click links
> or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content
> is safe.
> 
> My esteemed listmates,
> 
> XP and W7 never seemed to have this issue but it's huge with W10.
> 
> I 'll insert a flash drive into my laptop. I'll open that flash drive in File Explorer
> and open a Word file.
> 
> I'll then open  2-3 browsers and other applications and then close the
> flash drive file opened and close FE but W10 won;t prived the Safe to
> Eject Flash drive.
> 
> I often have to close all my browsers (what do they have  to do with the one
> file I opened in FE?) and yet I still can't get the safe to eject.
> 
> There have been times I've had  to reboot the laptop just to eject the
> flash drive.
> 
> Has anyone found a fi for this with W10?
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Charles.
> 
> Charlotte County Public Library
> 
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