To see if it's McAfee, just Google "disable McAfee". Definitely worth a try. FYI, you can always just remove McAfee and switch to Defender.

UPDATE:
I just discovered Process Explorer, a tool by Microsoft, The Download link will download a ZIP file. Extract it to a directory on your hard drive. There will be three .exe files. Run (double-click) procexp64 .exe. The display will show you a LOT of stuff. Click on "Find" at the top, then "Find Handle or DLL". In the text-entry box, to the left of the Search button, type the drive that you're trying to eject, i.e., "F:", then click Search. It may take a few seconds for results to appear. Hopefully the result will point you in the direction of the program that has a lock on your hard drive. In my case, even tho Media Player Classic Home Cinema was running, I got zero results when searching for my thumb drive that Windows will not let me eject. But another search, for one of my external HDs, did display a program that had a lock on the HD. So, you may have mixed results.

Fair warning - this is a POWERFUL tool. I don't mean to scare you, but it can be very easy to start killing programs with this tool. Before using this, make sure you have saved and closed all data files you may have open, such as PDF's or word-processing documents.

Edited by - HumptyRumpty on 1/21/2025 12:06:15 PM

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I did find a link on a MS page where an MS tech person said that hard drives no longer need to be ejected. He pointed out that the command now is to eject the drive rather than as it used to say which was to safely remove the drive. The link walked me through a way to find out if my drives are set up that way, and while I was able to follow through and find that menu, the WD drive didn't have the menu option for quick release, meaning I could just unplug it. I'm not just pulling the plug unless I know it is safe though. That's too risky.

I'll try Process Manager. This is very frustrating...

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I appreciate the advice and information.

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I originally thought that since this was happening on a new Dell PC and not on my old one that the culprit was the free version of McAfee Anti-virus that Dell installs on all their computers could be the problem. I remain convinced that this is what the original problem was. Once the trial period expired (for some reason I couldn't delete the software until after that) I deleted McAfee and the problem went away. For a while at least.

A couple of weeks ago, the problem came back with a vengeance. 90%+ of the time I needed to shut the PC off to remove a drive. On several occasions, I tried a dozen times to eject the drive, sometimes waiting a while between attempts, and rarely with success. It was frustrating and I figured I'd need to get some professional help for my PC.

I had searched for months for a solution that I could use. I'm not tech savvy and most of the solutions were well beyond what I was comfortable doing. My concern was that I'd end up making things worse. I don't have any examples (partly because I didn't understand what the suggestions were) but some of them seemed to be rewriting lines of software. Nope.

A week ago I was online searching for a fix again and stumbled on a recommendation that was well within my abilities. I tried it and it worked! I tried it again and it worked. Then again. It usually works on the first try, but on rare occasions it takes two tries.

It appears that Windows Explorer (I think that's what File Manager is now called) is the culprit. The fix that works for me is to go to Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DELETE then select Task Manager on the list that pops up). In the search box in Task Manager, enter "Windows Explorer." It'll find it by the time you type in "Windows E." Right click on Windows Explorer and select "Restart." Immediately eject your drive. It's worked for me since I started using it.

For anyone having this problem, this could be your simple solution too.

(I wonder that because this problem recently popped up again that it is a glitch in a recent update. If so, it's possible that a future update will fix it. I hope so, but in the meantime, this is an easy and quick solution.)

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I agree that the problem is probably with Windows 11. I still occasionally use my older PC with Windows 10 for backing up newly added files and it never refuses to eject an external drive where the new PC with 11 refuses to eject them at least 90% of the time. Using the method of restarting Windows Explorer works, but it's frustrating to do that every time. I also presume that the OS isn't intended to have a key feature restarted over and over and over.

I'm not tech savvy so I haven't heard the complaints around 11, but it's telling that when I'll be frequently swapping external drives when I back up new files I return to my old Windows 10 PC.

With 11 having been around for a while, I'm surprised that there haven't been more complaints here at ADT. A lot of us use external drives. Maybe some people just have one or two that they keep plugged in.

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