USB memory sticks/flash drives, wireless internet dongles, some cameras, MP3 players and certain other devices need to be properly dismounted from your computer. You should not just unplug them, as doing so can possibly corrupt the device and even data on your computer.
To dismount your device:
1. Click on the Unplug or Eject Hardware icon in the taskbar’s tool tray – this is the icon with the green arrow
2. Click 'Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device'. There may be more than one entry here if you have several devices connected to your computer. Usually you can tell which device is which by the name.
3. Once you click on 'Safely Remove USB Mass Storage Device' a notification balloon should appear to let you know it has dismounted correctly. Close it and unplug the drive.
If the drive will not dismount it may be because it is still in use on your computer. Check that any documents or files on the drive are not open in an application (for example, a document may still be open in Word, or an image in Photoshop). Check that there is not an explorer window open for one of the folders on the drive. In all of these cases close down the window, and try dismounting it again.
Sometimes even this is not sufficient. In this case you will need to log out of Windows, and then disconnect the device.
It is always safe to unplug a device whilst the machine is shut down.
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