Windows won’t eject my storage device

I’d been using an external hard drive (connected by USB) and wanted to safely eject it. But no matter what I did, I kept getting this message: “Windows can’t stop your ‘Generic volume’ device because a program is still using it. Close any programs that might be using the device, and then try again later.”

I tried quite a number of possible solutions I found on the internet, but none worked for me — until this one below. I’ve copied the solution in full, in case this information is no longer available at the URL at some time in the future (original URL where I found the answer: http://superuser.com/questions/36716/how-to-safely-remove-a-usb-drive-when-windows-cant-stop-your-generic-volume).

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Simple fix (Windows 7 Professional 64-bit):

1. Change the drive letter, and if you want to keep the same letter, change it back.
2. The drive can now be unmounted.

When you change the drive letter, it disconnects the drive from all processes that might be using it, as the warning message states. Once that happens, you can then unmount it the usual way.

If you don’t know how to change drive letter, follow these instructions.

1. Control Panel –> Administrative Tools –> Computer Management –> Storage –> Disk Management (wait ~10 seconds for information to appear.)
2. Select the problem drive under volume heading.
3. Scroll to that drive in the lower part of window.
4. Right-click on the drive, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Change the drive letter to one not reserved for another drive.
6. Acknowledge the warning message.
7. If you wish the drive to retain the original letter, simply switch it back. The drive can now be unmounted.

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[Link last checked February 2017]

Telstra service status

For my Aussie readers: If you’re having a problem with your Telstra landline, you can enter your postcode into this site (http://servicestatus.telstra.com/) and get a status update. There are three ‘buttons’ at the top of the screen — current interruptions/maintenance, scheduled maintenance, and completed maintenance. The service they’re referring to is landline voice calls ONLY, not ADSL internet.

And why did I find this out? Each of the three calls I made at various times today and to various numbers gave me a message that the ‘service to the telecoms network I was calling was temporarily congested, and please try again later’.

So I called iinet who my phone is through, and their 13xxxx number worked straight away from my landline. The lovely support person I spoke to said Telstra keep the 13xxxx numbers free in case of emergency as they’re ‘more important’, and told me about this Telstra site. Sure enough, we have ‘scheduled maintenance’ going on right now (‘Customers may experience difficulties making and receiving calls using their home phone service’) and it’s expected to last from 15 to 28 Feb (!!!). However, she said typically Telstra work on one part of the exchange for a day, which means we might only be down for the day. Fingers crossed. Meantime, Telstra gave us NO notification that the phone would be out, nor do they notify iinet of such outages.

Methods for converting a scanned image of text into text

A few years ago, I documented how to use Adobe Acrobat’s optical character recognition (OCR) function to convert an image of text into actual text you can edit. I’ve since found other (free) methods to do this; hopefully one of these may work for you. My preferred method is OneNote, because it’s quick and easy and secure (if you’re using Microsoft Office installed on your computer).

NOTES:

• None of the methods I tried gave 100% perfect results (but then, paid-for OCR software isn’t 100% either), but all were much quicker and easier than retyping the text. You’ll need to compare the results against the original PDF/image and fix the (hopefully few) errors that didn’t convert.
• Online services have the added risk that you don’t know what happens to the files you upload, so be aware that there may be a ‘cost’ for ‘free’.

Use online conversion software

A quick and free option is available from http://www.onlineocr.net. You can upload and convert up to 15 PDFs/images (up to 5 MB per file) per hour without registering; you have to register if you want to do more than that. Outputs include Microsoft Word, Excel, and plain text.

I found it quick and easy to use, and the results were acceptable.

Use Google Docs

If you have a Google account, use your Google Drive. Then follow these instructions: https://support.google.com/drive/answer/176692?hl=en. (If this link no longer works, do this: Upload your image file to your Google Drive, then right-click on the image and select Open with > Google Docs.)

Once you’ve converted the image to a document, you’ll see the original image at the top of the document and might assume nothing has happened. Scroll down — you’ll find the converted text below the original image.

Use Microsoft Office OneNote

Add the image into OneNote. Right-click on it and select Copy text from Picture. Then paste it into Microsoft Word, Notepad, or whatever text editing or word processing software you use (you can also post it into OneNote).

OneNote comes with Microsoft Office, so if you have Office, this is a really easy method — you don’t need a Google account, and you don’t need to use an online service where you have no idea what happens to the files you submit.