For safety purposes as well as to prevent corrupting the data inside the external hard drive, it is highly recommended to safely eject the external hard drive. Although most Windows 10 already has a quick removal policy, there are still users who would want to remove and eject external hard disk drive safely.

Since ejecting external hard drive process is pretty simple, there have been reports from Windows Users having trouble ejecting External Hard Drive connected to their computer, this means that they are unable to safely remove the external hard drive using the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media’ option.

In here, we will talk about the recommended solutions that you can try to fix Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10.

Fix Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10

If you are unable to eject safely the external hard drive connected to your computer or the option is greyed out, it can either be caused by the contents on the hard drive are still being used to an outdated USB drivers. Listed below are the troubleshooting solutions that you can do to fix Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10 issue.

Solution 1: Restart Computer

This is the very first thing that you need to do when you encounter issues with not being able to safely eject External hard drive. This action refreshes the computer system by closing all programs and removes any corrupt temporary data that may have caused issues on your computer

Solution 2: Run Hardware & Devices Troubleshooter

Another alternative way to run troubleshooter:

1. Press Start or Windows key located at the lower left.
2. Click Settings, an icon that looks like a gear. This will open Windows Settings
3. At Windows settings, click Update and Security.
4. At left pane, click Troubleshoot
5. Click Additional Troubleshooters at right pane.
6. Under Get up and Running, click Hardware and Devices.
7. Click Run the Troubleshooter. Windows will now search for problems. Wait for it to complete.
8. After Hardware and device troubleshooter process is complete and it could not identify any problem, click Close.

Check if Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10 still occurs.

Solution 3: Check Hard Drive Policy

If the “Eject” option or “Safely remove and Eject Media” option is not available or does not appear, it probably means that the Hard drive may be currently in use. If that is the case, Windows will automatically disallow users to remove the hard drive to prevent data loss in the process. To fix this, you may need to change the Hard Drive policy using the steps below:

1. Press Windows key + R on your keyboard to open RUN dialog box.
2. At RUN dialog box, type “devmgmt.msc” and press Enter or click OK to open Device Manager.
3. Click Disk Drives to expand it.
4. Right click on the disk drive that you want to eject and click Proprties from the drop down menu.
5. Click Policies tab
6. Under Removal Policy, click the option Better Performance instead of Quick Removal which is the default policy.
7. Click OK to apply changes made and exit Properties window.
8. Restart Computer.

Once computer completely reboots, check if Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10 still occurs.

Solution 4: Use Safely Remove Hardware utility

A utility tool that access the old Windows tool to Safely Remove Hardware. With Safely remove hardware utility, you will be able to safely remove and eject External Hard Drive connected to your computer. Follow the steps below on how to eject using the Safely remove hardware utility.

1. Press Windows key + R on your keyboard to open RUN dialog box.
2. At RUN dialog box, type the following shorcut “RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll” and press Enter or click OK.
3. In Safely remove hardware window, click on the disk drive you want to eject.
4. Click Stop located at the lower right.
5. Click Close to exit.

check if the issue still occurs.

Solution 5: Update USB drivers

An outdated USB drivers can cause issues with ejecting a disk drive or USB drive in your computer. To fix this issue, you may need to uninstall and then update USB driver.

1. Press Windows key + R on your keyboard to open RUN dialog box
2. At RUN box, type “devmgmt.msc” and press Enter or click OK to open Device Manager.
3. Click on Universal Serial Bus Controllers to expand it.
4. Locate an entry with a yellow exclamation mark on it. If there aren’t any, right click on the driver and click update driver from the drop down menu.
5. Click Search Automatically for drivers. Windows will now search for and update drivers.
6. After best drivers for the device are already installed, click Close to exit.
7. Exit Device Manager window.

Check if Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10 still occurs.

After following the solutions mentioned, you will successfully fix Cant Eject External Hard Drive On Windows 10. For more troubleshooting videos, feel free to visit our TheDroidGuy Youtube Channel.

Also read:

• How to Fix ‘Display Driver Failed to Start’ Error on Windows 10
• How to Fix Unknown USB Device (Port Reset Failed) Error on Windows 10