[MAUI9BILL]

I may be in the wrong topic but here goes. I am running Vista Home on my Asus F3F laptop. I have a Venus DS5 aux drive connected by a Rosewill eSATA II Express Card. When I try to disconnect it by clicking on the Safely Remove Hardware icon I get the message that it can't be disconnected because running programs are using it. I have 12 programs that run all the time, 6 from Microsoft, 2 each from Canon and McAffee and one each from Yahoo and Synaptics. I have contacted Venus Tech and got no help what so ever. Am told by friends if I just unplug it I will probably foul up the data that is on it. Can someone square me away on this please. Thanks so much for your help.

[Scleros]

...When i try to disconnect it by clicking on the Safely Remove Hardware icon i get the message that it can't be disconnected because running programs are using it....

Ain't Windows wonderful? Some process has a file open on the drive, but Windows is all coy and won't tell you which file or which process. Could be one of the applications you listed, could be Windows Explorer, could be antivirus, could be any of the tens of processes that are typically running. You can close the applications you listed individually and discover which one it is by trial and error. There is also a more technical Process Explorer utility available that will show which processes have which files open. The computer can also be shutdown and the drive unplugged. Additionally, there is a policy configuration preference in the drive's properties for quick removal or performance. If set to performance, write caching is enabled which will most always generate the message you received when attempting removal.

...Am told by friends if I just unplug it i will probably foul up the data that is on it...

Probably is probably too strong a word. Might may be a better word depending on the type of file in use and the process. The risks are: file corruption can occur if the drive is unplugged while an application is actively writing to the drive; application corruption can occur if the file the application thinks it has open disappears unbeknownst to the application before the application can tidy up after itself. If caching is enabled, yanking the drive results in pending writes not being written - e.g. what you saved, maybe wasn't.