Member Avatar for GiddyupGilbert

Win7/32/laptop: I don't know if this is the correct area or should I be in hardware. I've always understood you go in and click to remove USB hardware from the computer, and that if you don't it will eventually ruin the port, or screw up driver/software.

On my wife's laptop two of the three USB2.0 sockets have quit functioning. She never remembers to click before removing. I don't know what goes bad and if there is a possibility of port repair with a driver, or if they've just flat gone bad. Would appreciate any input. We all forget sometimes, and I've often wondered why the USB system was designed that way.

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Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

I've always understood you go in and click to remove USB hardware from the computer,

click what? Not saying that's wrong, but I don't know what youre supposed to click.

Member Avatar for GiddyupGilbert

In the lower right hand side of of your window, last section on the right in the task bar, you have a two arrow thing on the left that opens a requester. In there one of the tiny icons will allow/say safely remove and eject hardware. You're suppose to click that any time you remove a USB device.

Member Avatar for JorgeM

Removing the USB device without safely ejecting is not for protecting the hardware itself or the drivers. The primary purpose is to protect your data.

Pulling out a USB drive while it's being written to could corrupt the data. IN addition, even if the drive isn't actively being written to, you could still corrupt the data if you dont tell the OS that you are about to pull out the USB device. By default, most operating systems use what's called write caching to get better performance out of your computer. So this is done to improve performance. You are actually writing to cache before it gets writtent to the drive. If the cache hasnt been committed to disk before pulling out the USB device, you can corrupt your data.

Edited by JorgeM
Member Avatar for GiddyupGilbert

Thank you Jorge for that info. That helps.

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

In the lower right hand side of of your window, last section on the right in the task bar, ...

I never noticed that before.

Member Avatar for GiddyupGilbert

If yer as ancient as I am there will be many things you probably haven't noticed. I learn something new every cottonpicking day. :)

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