Is it safe to disconnect usb hdd in this situation

The usb settings are set for fast removal but just to be sure nothing goes wrong,I still use the safely remove hardware feature
But the thing is,the "safely remove hardware" almost always fails even if the hdd is already spin down,says that something is using it
When I try to use the safely remove hardware,it actually wakes up the usb hdd and then I get a message that is used

The question is,if the hdd spin down,is it safe to disconnect it if it's set for fast removal
Is something kept in memory or something until I actually successfully eject it(windows says that the hdd is in use while the hdd is in idle mode(not rotating the disc)

I very, very rarely use an external HDD any more but back when I did, if safely remove didn't disconnect the handle the system had on the drive, I would always restart explorer or restart the system before unplugging it. I may have been wrong and it might have all been unnecessary but it made me feel safer before unplugging.

To make restarting explorer easier, I made a shortcut to C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c taskkill /im explorer.exe /f & start explorer.exe
named it Kill Explorer and kept it on my desktop.

I remove an external drive when the light is off. Does the light on yours stay on?

Jacee said:

I remove an external drive when the light is off. Does the light on yours stay on?

Click to expand...

No,it blinks when I read\write something to\from it and stays always on when the drive is spinning
When it spins down,the light turns off

I wouldn't risk removing while light is blinking. If "fast removal" isn't working, try not using it and see what happens.