Jan 27, 2024 • Filed to: USB Recovery • Proven solutions
Yes! There are many ways to fix the "this device is currently in use" error while ejecting your USB Drive. This is a very common problem, and most of us have faced it in our Windows PC. So, what should you do when you are stuck in such a problem? Go through the article to find out 4 methods to fix the problem while ejecting your USB Drive.
Whenever you are facing the error, "this device is currently in use" while trying to eject USB Mass Storage Drive, then you probably should believe the error, your device might be in use. This problem mostly occurs only when your USB Drive is engaged with some operation in your System. Now, you might not have initiated any such operation, or you might also have closed all the processes, but there can still be some hidden processes running.
It is possible that the apps or processes you have closed aren't closed and still running in the background. In that case, your USB Drive hasn't been disengaged from the process, resulting in the problem in ejecting the USB Drive and also the error "this device is currently in use." So, the best way to get rid of the problem is to shut down any such process, or to forcefully disengage the USB Drive from any process using it.
There are various ways to fix the "this device is currently in use" error while trying to eject your USB Drive. All the ways work on a simple intention i.e. to disengage the USB Drive from any process by marking it Offline in the system. You can use any of the below mentioned ways depending upon your need. To know more information about ejecting usb, read from: Why Should We Never Remove USB Drive Without Safely Ejecting it?
You can use Diskpart to mark your USB Drive Offline in the system. It is a complicated method but allows you access to every disk and its partition.
Step 1. To access the Diskpart, you will be required to go to the Command Prompt Window. To do so, search "Command Prompt" or "CMD" through the search panel on the task-bar of your Windows PC. Click on the result that contains the Command Prompt tool. This will bring you to the Command Prompt window as an administrator.
Step 2. On the command prompt window, you need to type "diskpart" and click on Enter. As soon as this command is processed, you will see the Diskpart getting activated. Now, you would be required to choose and give the appropriate commands to achieve your objective of fixing the error of "this USB Device is currently in Use."
Step 3. Now, give one of the following commands depending on the requirement. Type in a command and press Enter.
("#" in any of the previous command needs to be replaced with the number at which the volume or disk is listed on the Command Prompt window, e.g. "Select Volume 3").
Step 5. Following the previous command, once the disk or volume is selected, you need to give one of the following commands.
This will ensure, that your selected disk or volume gets marked as offline in the System. Marking the selected disk or volume as offline might fix the problem of ejecting USB Mass Storage Device saying "this device is currently in use".
Note: Once this process is completed, you might not be able to access the disk or volume again as it's marked Offline for the system. To mark it online again, you need to follow the same process till the "Step 5", and then replace the command "offline disk" or "offline volume" with "online disk" or "online volume" for the selected disk or volume. This will remark the disk or volume as Online, allowing you to access it again.
Disk Management utility is an extremely easy way to fix "this device is currently in use" error for your USB Drive. You can simply access the Disk Management window and mark your Drive Offline.
Step 1. From the home screen of your Windows PC, go to "This PC" icon and right-click on it. On the contextual-menu click on "manage" to get to the Computer Management window.
Step 2. On the computer management window, you will see a "Storage" option, click on it to get to the next window. Click on the "Disk Management" option on the next window to get to the Disk Management window.
Step 3. Once on the Disk Management window, look for your USB Storage Drive that is having a problem in getting successfully ejected. Right-click on the USB Drive and choose the option "Offline" from the contextual menu.
Once you choose the "Offline" option, your USB Drive will turn offline for the System. Doing so might fix the problem of ejecting USB Mass Storage Device saying "this device is currently in use".
Note: Once you have successfully marked your USB Drive Offline, you will not be able to use it next time until you mark it Online. To mark USB Drive Online, you'll be required to follow the same process, and choose the "Online" option at the end.
With the help of process explorer, you can find the processes that are using your Drive. It allows you to kill any such process and fix the error.
Step 1. To solve the problem of ejecting mass storage drive using Process Explorer, you will be required to first download and install the Process Explorer from Microsoft. Once installed, launch the tool and follow further steps.
Step 2. Now, on the menu-bar, click on the "Find" option. You will see a drop-down menu, choose "Find Handle or DLL…". As soon as you will choose the mentioned option, you will see a "Process Explorer Search" window appearing in front of you.
Step 3. Now, inside the search window, on the search panel "Handle or DLL substring", type the drive letter for the USB Drive that you want to eject, and click on "Search".
Step 4. Now, the tool will search for the processes that are using your selected Drive for operations. You can then kill all the processes that are listed for using your Drive, and then you can try to normally eject your Drive.
The killing of all the process, that is using your Drive, with the help of Process Explorer might disengage your Drive from any operation on the System. And, this might fix the problem of ejecting USB Mass Storage Device showing error "this device is currently in use".
Task Manager is the easiest way to find out and kill the processes that are engaging your USB Drive and resulting in the error while ejecting USB Drive.
Step 1. To go to the Task Manager window on your Windows PC, you need to right-click at a blank space on your Task-bar and choose the "Task Manager" option from the contextual menu.
Step 2. Once you are on the Task Manager window, you will see a list of processes listed according to their current running status in your System. You'll see the current status of each process, and how they are using your System's resources, through the numerical meters in front of them.
Step 3. Now, find which processes are operating on or using your connected USB Drive. If you find any such processor such as multiple processes, then these are the processes causing the error in ejecting your USB Drive. All you need to do is to right-click on the process and choose "End Task" to end the process.
Choosing the "End Task" for a process will end the process utilizing your USB Drive. It might also fix the problem of ejecting USB Mass Storage Device showing error "this device is currently in use".
If in a certain case, you lose the files from your USB Drive while trying to fix the error, then you should not worry. You might have lost your extremely important data, but you can always recover it with the help of Recoverit Data Recovery Tool.
You can use one of the most powerful, yet the easiest data recovery tool. Yes, Recoverit comes with a very powerful scanning process and recovery engine, while still keeping the UI one of the easiest and most user-friendly. All you need to do is to simply download the Recoverit tool, and start recovering your lost files from your Drive.
User Guide:
To recover the data from your recently fixed USB Drive, you need to download Recoverit Data Recovery Tool from its official website and install it on your System.
Step 1. Drive Selection
Launch the Recoverit Tool, and select the connected USB Drive in the Drive Selection Window. On the very first window of the tool i.e. Drive Selection Window, you'll find a list of all of your System's storage devices. Your Drive will be listed under the "External Devices" section, select the Drive for scanning and click on the "Start" button, placed at the bottom of the window, to start scanning.
Step 2. Scanning and Filtering
On the new window, while the tool scans your selected Drive, you will see the scanned files getting listed one by one. You can pause the scanning process at any moment, and resume it later, and you can also start recovery at the middle of the scanning. From the right-hand panel and left-hand panel, you can filter your scanning process by choosing File Type and File Path or different filters respectively.
Step 3. Recovery
Once the process of scanning your selected USB Drive is completed, you will see all the recoverable scanned files of your Drives listed on the recovery window. Find the files you want to recover, you can do so by searching for the files through the search bar, or by navigating through all the files. Preview and Select the files you want to recover, and then click on the "Recover" button placed at the bottom of the Window. If asked to choose a location, then choose a secure location on your PC to restore files and click "Ok".
After the successful completion of the recovery process, all of your recovered files will get restored to the selected location on your PC. You can navigate to the location and access all of your lost and then recovered files.
If while trying to eject your USB Drive, it shows you an error saying "the device is currently in use," then don't panic, it is a very common error. You can simply use any of the above mentioned 4 methods to fix the problems faced during the ejection of your USB Drive.
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