I keep a Light Room catalog and images on an external portable WD drive that I move between two computers (both desktop), one running Windows 7 and one running Windows 10. I worked on files in windows 7 computer yesterday, took drive home to connect to windows 10 computer to back up online, then back to windows 7 today to work on them. The file I am trying to access from portable drive today says it is ‘0 bytes’ in size even thought I had closed it and accessed it again yesterday from the 7 computer before I took it home. So somehow it disappeared??? The LR ‘backups’ I created on the drive are also missing as if they never existed.
One thing that happens is I often can’t safely eject the external drive. So I have to shut computer down to eject it. Sometimes it still spins after shut down. Maybe this is part of the problem…if so how do I solve? All programs are closed on shut down but drive is sometimes is still spinning.
Or is there an issue bc I am using the catalog on two different O/S (Windows 7 & 10)?
Please help I am going crazy and so tired of getting error messages!
Thanks so much!
Jen
Being unable to safely eject your hard drive means there is a file in use, and forced removal may lead to data corruption. Are you unable to eject your drive after ensuring the Adobe Lightroom process is completely closed in the Task Manager? Also, when transferring the catalog from Windows 10 to Windows 7, do you encounter the same issue while using another hard drive?
LR is closed. And I check task manager and even processes and look for anything that has anything to do with the WD external drive but can’t find anything. I’ve heard before it can be anti-virus? I’m not actually transferring the catalog, just using it on both computers, accessing the catalog from the external drive.
I have had issues with other external hard drives on both computers not wanting to eject (they hardly ever do), I know this is a common problem. But the externals do usually power down once the computer is off this one just doesn’t. I’ve read other places if the computer doesn’t power it off, then safely eject it first. But of course if that isn’t working, that’s not a solution. There’s not a WD utility or something of the sort to ‘safely eject’ is there?
The WD Quick View (Installed by WD SmartWare) should allow you to eject your WD Passport Ultra, but it can be blocked as well by application priority when there’s a file connected to an active process.
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?DL&lang=en
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OK thanks. You don’t think using the drive on two different versions of windows would be causing problems though?
Unless Windows 10 has a backwards compatibility file system data corruption bug then I don’t think so.
I’ve used the WD Smartware icon in the Sys Tray often to Safely Eject.
I - DO - DIS-able Backup on the drive and close the app before trying.
I’ve found IF I try too soon after Disabling BkUp I get the File in use pop-up.
Re-Boots make it easy, hour+ waits after BkUp Disable / App closed, and Removal after I’ve done Macrium Reflect Images seem to be problem free.
Add me to the list of people who can’t seem to get MyPassport to safely eject after backup. Same problem everyone else is having – running Windows 10, get screen message that it’s not safe to remove device because some programs are running and data loss possible. I can’t tell which “programs are running” by looking at File Manager. (Only semi-computer-literate.) Have to shut PC down completely. THEN sometimes PC won’t reboot. Sometimes it will. Very frustrating. I can’t/won’t continue to use this external drive as a backup device if we can’t come up with a simple solution to this problem.
I have Windows 10 and WD My Passport Ultra, some time this drive will not eject via Windows or WD Discovery. I have tried the above, any other ideas ?
