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Use removable devices properly in Windows XP

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There are many removable devices that can be easily used in Windows XP. These include external USB or Firewire hard drives or DVD-writers, smart card readers, USB flash drives,  photo and video cameras, MP3-players, etc.

There is a very important catch, though. I've seen many people just unplugging USB devices without telling Windows XP to remove them safely first. Such behavior can easily cause loss of data on external data devices (flash drives, hard drives, cameras, players).

Remember, you always have to safely remove a data device before unplugging it from USB or Firewire port!

There are some devices that do not require additional actions before unplugging - these includes USB scanners and printers, for example.

When you plug an external device in to your computer's USB or Firewire port for the first time, Windows XP will recognize it and tries to find drivers for it automatically:

Most data devices are recognized without any additional actions, just wait until you'll see the message "Your new hardware is installed and ready to use":

As you can see, a small green arrow icon appears in Taskbar Notification Area. This is what you will use to safely remove your hardware.

Your new device will also have the first available drive letter (E: in this example) and Type "Removable Disk" when you open My Computer or Windows Explorer:

When you need to unplug your external data device, click on the green arrow icon in Notification Area and choose Safely remove <the name of your device>.
Please remember that you will have to first close all documents that are on the external data device and all programs that might be using the device.

If everything is fine and nothing is using the device, you will see a yellow pop-up message that it is now safe to unplug your device:

If not, you will see a warning message. Click OK to close it.

Close all programs that are using the data device and try again after ten seconds.

Looking for Windows Vista version of the article? Click here then.
Looking for Windows 7 version of the article? Click here then.

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