Hi, Dave -

I've had similar problems. If any application has a hold of any files on that removable disk, it won't let you "remove" it via the "Safely Remove Hardware" utility.

That being said, be sure the drive isn't the "current" drive - in file explorer, click on the C: drive. Close any open explorer windows, because the smaller view you get in Vista when you mouse over it on the task bar "holds" onto it. Close any applications that may have used the files. Then try to safely remove the drive. Even then, that doesn't always work and you are forced to either yank it out (taking the chance of corruption) or just shutting down. But basically, you want to shut down anything that my have accessed that drive (and remember, that can also include any disk defraggers - I use DiskKeeper, which runs in the background; any anti-virus or anti-spyware that might be running in the background; etc).

I googled this not long ago myself and above are the answers I got. There may be something more definitive somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. I also experience this (although to a lesser degree) on my XP computer, as well.

I use Coyote Forte on my Vista machine (but it's Vista 32-bit) and don't have any problems. I can't answer for 64-bit.

Good luck.

John

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