Computer Related > Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Fenlander Replies: 11

 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Fenlander
My PC has an integral multi card reader. I always right click on the card drive (happens to be L) shown in My Computer and select Safely Remove before pulling the card out of the PC.

Problem is this clears off all the card drives from My Computer so if I want to come back in a few minutes having taken a picture when I insert the card it ignores it. I have to do a reboot before the PC will see the card again.

Am I doing something wrong?
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - spamcan61
This isn't really answering your question, but what happens if , rather than reboot, you go to device manager (under system properties) , is the card reader there? (should be under 'disk drives' IIRC)

If it isn't right click on 'computer' at the top of the hardware list, select 'scan for hardware changes' and see if the card reader re-appears.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Fri 28 Jan 11 at 10:17
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - rtj70
My old PC would do the same. When he's saying safely remove he's removing the USB connected card reader. It then removes the reader in its entirety with all media slots/drives. If this was an external reader then physically unplugging it and plugging it back in would bring it back. Not an option here.

If you go into Device Manager and tell it to look for new devices it might come back. I don't think this worked on my old PC - can't remember. But I was happy to remove flash cards when they weren't being written to without doing anything.

Have you tried going into Explorer, right clicking on the drive and selecting Eject?
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Zero
Dont eject the card logically at all.

You don't need to, as long as you don't whip it out quickly after a read write operation.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Stuartli
If you are using Windows7, you can remove devices such as memory cards safely so long as any activity has ceased.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - spamcan61
>> Dont eject the card logically at all.
>>
>> You don't need to, as long as you don't whip it out quickly after a
>> read write operation.
>>
I must admit that even using XP I've almost never bothered logically ejecting anything. I've never corrupted any data.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - rtj70
As long as the card is configured for safe removal (not set in the performance mode) then as long as nothing is being written then it is safe to simply unplug.

The OP would appear to prefer to unmount cards before removing though.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Fenlander
Thanks all. As I always close down anything that is related to the card files first it seem the Safely Remove isn't needed and I can save the hassle.

I've only always done it because somewhere I read in my early digicam days it was needed.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - movilogo
I never do "safely remove hardware". Simply take the card out from computer's card reader (making sure file copy already finished). If I insert it again few minutes later, it works fine.

On some odd occassions it does not recognize the card 2nd time (or even 1st time). Then I had to reluctantly reboot.

 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Bellboy
while i agree in principle movilogo, i think that the computer doesnt see the card as a removable medium and as such yes you will get away with it but for how long?
i recommend not doing it
and i know not a lot
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - smokie
"safely remove hardware" essentially flushes any operating system cache so that the device doesn't get removed before writing to it has finished (= corrupt data).

But as the default for removable devices is that caching isn't enabled, it really oughtn't make much difference if you don't logically remove it first, so long as you haven't just written something to it and pull it out before it's finished.
 Safely remove camera card from PC - odd issue - Fursty Ferret
Have been ripping memory cards from computers for years without "safely removing" them and like everyone else never had any problems.

My pet hate with OS X is that it nags me every time I do this.
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