Fixing “Device in Use” Error When Ejecting Drives

Ever tried to safely eject an external hard drive or USB stick only to get the frustrating “This device is in use” error? A common culprit for this issue can be background programs that hold onto the device, preventing it from unmounting. For AMD users, one possible cause is the AMD User Experience Program.

Here’s how to turn off this feature to solve the issue. Note: the AMD User Experience Program is opt-in, so you may have enabled it manually during driver installation to help AMD improve their software.

Steps to Turn Off the AMD User Experience Program

1. Right-click on your desktop to open the context menu.
2. Select AMD Radeon Software to open the Radeon application.
3. In the Radeon Software, click on the Settings icon (the gear icon).
4. Go to the General tab.
5. Scroll down until you see the AMD User Experience Program.
6. Click on it, then select Leave to disable it.

Now, try ejecting the drive again. With the AMD User Experience Program disabled, the drive should unmount successfully.

Still Not Working? Try Microsoft’s Process Explorer

If disabling the AMD User Experience Program doesn’t solve the problem—or if your PC doesn’t have AMD graphics—you can use Microsoft’s Process Explorer to track down the process holding onto your USB drive. Here’s how:

1. Download and install Process Explorer from Microsoft’s website.
2. Open Process Explorer and click on Find > Find Handle or DLL...
3. In the search box, type the drive letter of the external device, for example, “E:/”.
4. Click Search to see which process is using the drive.

Once you identify the process, you can close it (but be careful what you close, search on the web to determine it is a system process) and then try ejecting your device again.

With these steps, you should be able to safely unmount your drive without any more headaches!

P.S. – You’d think with how hard these processes hold on to your USB, they’d at least offer to keep it warm!