How to disconnect my harddrive

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

Which operating system ?????????

The system tray in Windows XP is the right side of the small blue bar at the bottom of the screen that houses the clock and a few other small icons. You can add icons to the system tray for ease of access, including the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon, which allows you to easily remove hardware from your computer.

Turn on the Windows XP computer and right-click the taskbar. Select "Properties" from the menu that appears. Check "Hide Inactive Icons", then select "Customize" A new window appears with all of the icons currently on the system tray, along with icons also for some programs that don't appear on the tray. Click next to the icon "Safely Remove Hardware," then check the box "Always Show". Click "Apply". Safely Remove Hardware Icon?
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If a Windows based machine, locate and double click "My Computer" (or similar). A box will open and show the devices attached to your computer. Fixed drives such as "C:" appear under "hard disks and CD, DVD players, external drives and thumb drives will appear as "devices with removable storage" or as "portable storage"

Plug the drive's USB cable into the computer (if it isn't already) and double click the new drive to view the contents. Often times, these drives ship with software to perform back ups, or other utility - or include the manual and warranty information. You can use the drive as if it were one of the other permanently connected drives inside your computer.

Make sure that you click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the System Tray BEFORE unplugging the drive's USB cable. Data loss can result if disconnected before the data has been written completely to the disk.

I hope this helped & good luck!

Follow these steps :
1.1
Plug the flash drive into one of your computer's available USB ports.
2.2
Look for the "Found New Hardware" balloon to pop up in your system tray. When the installation is complete, you can either click the balloon or go to "My Computer" and double-click the flash drive to open it.
3.3
Open the folder containing the data you want to store on the flash drive. Either copy the files and paste them into the flash drive's folder, or drag and drop.
4.4
Click the "safely remove hardware" icon. This is an icon with a green arrow in the system tray in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. When you click it you will see a message that reads "Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device." Click that message box.
5.5
If your flash drive has a light, it will turn off when the drive can be removed. Otherwise, it is safe to remove the drive when the message box goes away. Remove the drive.

no it shouldn't crash. you can just pull it out but i guess the "proper" way is to go to MyPC right click it and click eject

If you are using a version of windows, there is an icon in your system tray(bottom right hand corner of your monitor) which you should use to disconnect your device. If you let your mouse cursor glide over each icon, it will give you a brief description afte a second or two, The one you are looking for will say "safely remove hardware" or something to that effect. Click on it, if you have more than one device here, those options will pop up. Click on the one you intend to disconnect and wait a minute:you should be notified when it has been disconnected.

Hope this helps!

"removing my usb stick" - This seems like a statement, not a question.

That said, the biggest problem people have removing the USB stick from a computer is that they fail to unmount the drive before removing it. In Windows this can be done by left clicking the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the task bar, clicking your device, and then waiting for it to tell you that it is ready. With Mac and Linux you just right-click and unmount the drive.

Either way, not doing this can wipe your USB drive or corrupt your files.

Check if it is in use using Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc)
Single click on the USB icon in the right side bottom corner (System Tray) and select Safely remove hardware

well before you shut down the computer, double click on the little icon in the bottum right of the screen that says (safely remove hardware) and then you can choose from a list of all the plug n play hardware you have plugged in....double click the correct one and click on stop. then shut down the computer, then unplug the power.

plz double click on the symbol to right hand side bottom.and stop the device.and then u can safely remove the device.