Should I 'stop' a USB flash drive before removing?

[Keith Nichols]

A colleague passed on the advice that you should always stop a flash drive before removing it. I have never done this, indeed until he showed me how, I didn't know how to do it r even that it could be done.

It makes sense not to remove the flash drive when reading or writng to/from it as you risk corrupting data. Certainly with hard disks, I can see that the heads need to be parked before removal, but are there any potential problems in removing a solid state device when it is not being read or written to?

 

[Rickster57]

thumbs up

I make sure all users are aware of stopping the Thumb drive before removing it.

I had come across this on the internet some time ago.....

When finished, you should stop the USB hardware service before unplugging the device.

Note: Windows XP users can just remove the device from the computer without stopping the device. Windows 2000 doesn't handle unplugging USB devices as well as XP. So (2000 users), be safe! Stop the device before removing.]

 

[Minkey]

I can't remember the specific techincal reason behind this but I know it's to do with the way XP handles file transfers but in most cases you don't need to eject the device, however in Win2000 backwards you did (as it handles the file transfer process differently).

Certain things do need you to eject the device (though they are quite rare) - if you are running MojoPac for example. Which btw is a very cool app - your PC on a data stick ? nice

 

[Keith Nichols]

Thanx for the responses guys.

I use my flash for carrying jpgs & docs etc between PCs (sneaker-net). All the PC's I use are using Windows XP so I guess that I am ok as long as the device is not being actively interrogated at that the moment of removal.