ERROR: My Book Essential--Won't Disconnect

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

Ok, so I had my book essential connected to my computer. It was making my computer extremely slow. The power light on the my book was contiously flashing and in the user manual that means it is “working”. I wasn’t doing anything except checking my yahoo mail and TRYING to get on facebook. But, the my book was slowing my computer down a lot to the point to where it took about 10 minutes just for my mozilla to open to my homepage.

So, in my task tray I right click and click the thing to safely disconnect my book. I get a message that pops up (after about 5 minutes) that says “The device My book essential USB HDD could not be removed. Please close all running programs and try again later”.

Well, all programs WERE closed. I had closed my mozilla, I logged off (and exited) my Yahoo messenger, I disabled my anti-virus etc. but NOTHING was working, I just kept getting this error message.

I finally just got fed up and unplugged the USB from my computer that was connected to the my book.

Has anyone else had this issue and does anyone know how to solve it?

Thanks!

Edited to add: for reference, I’m using windows XP.

2

Are you using the Smartware? It can be a resource hog. If it’s doing automatic backup it may not be at a point where it can stop.

Joe

3

Hi, yes, I am using the smartware.

It shouldn’t be backing anything up because it already did the initial backup and NOTHING has changed on my system since I’ve done that initial backup. It did say that the backup was complete.

That is what I’m really confused about. it should not be doing ANYTHING while I’m just surfing the net or checking my yahoo mail, considering those aren’t activities of anything that is saving to my hard drive, which would need backing up.

I haven’t yet gotten to a point with this my book to where the power light on it was NOT flashing. it seems to ALWAYS be working… even if I open the smartware screen, and it shows it is NOT doing any work, it is still flashing, which the manual online says that means it’s working.