Why won't my external hard drive safely eject? I am running Windows 7 Premium.

Windows 7 has something set wrong if you are showing 2.6GB usable. Windows 7 will recognize 3GB regardless of whether it is 32 bit or 64 bit.

External hard drives are portable storage devices you can use to back up files or transfer content from one computer to another quickly and safely.

While external hard drives vary in design and storage capacity, turning them off properly is ideal because it decreases the chances of damaging or corrupting files.

Whether you are using Windows or Mac OS X, you can safely eject and turn off your external hard drive in minutes.

Safely eject your external hard drive before turning it off if you have connected it to your computer.

To do so, click the "Safely remove hardware" icon on the system tray on the taskbar. T
he hardware window launches.


Click your external hard drive's icon in the hardware window and click the "Stop" button. You should see the "This device can now be safely removed from your computer" dialog message.

Press the "Power" button to turn off your external hard drive.
Some external hard drives turn off automatically when you safely eject them.

Right-click your external hard drive's icon on the desktop if you are using a Mac, and then click "Eject."

Alternatively, drag your external hard drive's icon from the desktop to the "Trash" bin.
You should no longer see your hard drive on the desktop.

Press the "Power" button to turn off your external hard drive

The hard drive could be corrupt, this will cause the operating system to run the error checking. If you had a virus, and it infected any windows files, windows will check the files, but if it can\'t fix them, then it won;t run. You can try to enter safe mode, tapping F8 at boot, you should see a option to repair or restore. If not see if you can enter Safe Mode.

In safe mode you can go to start button, all programs, accessories, system tools, system restore.

You can also get a windows install disk, same version as you have, and put in the disk and hit F11, and boot from the disk, and run a repair from it.


You really should go to the website Avira, and download the rescue disk, burn it to a CD. This will run a virus scan of the hard drive before windows in DOS.
If there is a virus, it will kill it. But there is a chance it can\'t clean the virus and windows won\'t start.

The other option is to just erase the hard drive, not format, erase it with a program like Active kill disk. Then reinstall windows, all the drivers.

Will the external drive work on another computer? Has the external drive been dropped, bumped, jarred? If it works on another computer, shut down the Win7 laptop, unplug, remove battery, remove the USB external plug, plug into AC, reboot, when it is finished, plug in USB.

hmmm what backup software are you using, from windows or hitachi? seems if the computer can see the drive, then it's a file formatting issue that you are facing.

Are you able to get to the desktop in safe mode?
Repeatedly press F8 on startup and choose to boot to safe mode in the options window.

try setting it up as an external hard drive using the usb ports there is an adaptor that is available from Jaycar that allows you to put the hard drive in it and it uses a usb cable to the computer
then download a suitable reader program to read the files as the win 7 will want to know the program that wrote the files

it is impossible to install windows 7 to an external drive on any PC. to install it you will have to remove the drive you have in the laptop and then run the setup for windows

Works in my Gateway Netbook running a Win 7 Starter OS, Won't even install on my Dell N5010 running a Win 7 Home premium OS. BUT IT does work in Safe mode on the Dell laptop. Tried compatibility mode. Have no Idea why it won't install.