Ejecting USB drives from the command line

A client of mine requires me to use their hardware to link to their network, but I do my development on my own hardware. To keep things straight, I use a external USB hard drive to keep my local copy of their repository. Switching between the machines is kind of a pain, so anytime I can simplify the process, Im all for it.

Because Im running IIS and debugging through Visual Studio, Im not able to "Safely Remove Hardware" using the icon in the dock. IIS keeps a lock on the files on the drive which means I get "The device generic volume cannot be stopped right now. Try stopping the device later." error.

The quickest solution I could get was to perform a "iisreset /restart" from the command line, as well as then remove hardware.

Too lots of annoying steps.

I did some research on stopping an external device by the command line, as well as came across this Ask Leo post. Essentially, Microsoft provides a utility called devcon that lets you stop USB devices from the DOS prompt.

First I ran devcon status * to get out the name of my hard drive. It was something lengthy and nasty:

USBSTORDISK&VEN_WD*PROD_2500BEV_EXTERNAL&REV_1.04575843383037353439393539&O
Name: WD 2500BEV External USB Device
Driver is running.
If I run the following at the command line, it will stop the device (provided nothing else is preventing it from doing so:

devcon remove USBSTORDISK*

(The asterisk is a wildcard character and really is needed because the command line pukes on ampersands anyway.)

Being the occasionally smart fellow I am, I created a little batch file I want to call eject.bat:

iisreset /stop
devcon remove USBSTORDISK*
iisreset /start

Now, IIS is stopped, the drive ejected, as well as IIS started again. I just run it from the command line and Ive saved myself 13.8 seconds (+/- 20 seconds).

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How to remove Virus from USB Drives

One of the ways by which a virus can infect your PC is through USB/Pen drives. Commonviruses such as ’Ravmon’ , ‘New Folder.exe’, ‘Orkut is banned’ etc are spreading throughUSB drives. Most anti virus programs are unable to detect them and even if they do, in most cases they are unable to delete the file, only quarantine it. Here are the things which you can do if you want to remove such viruses from your USB Drive

Whenever you plug a USB drive in your system, a window will appear similar to the one shown below

Don’t click on Ok , just choose ‘Cancel’. Open the Command Prompt by typing ‘cmd‘ in the run box. In the command prompt type the drive letter: and press enter . Now type dir /w/a and press enter.

This will display a list of the files in the pen drive. Check whether the following files are there or not

• Autorun.inf
• Ravmon.exe
• New Folder.exe
• svchost.exe
• Heap41a
• or any other exe file which may be suspicious.

If any of the above files are there, then probably the USB drive is infected. In command prompt type attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter. This will remove the Read Only, Archive, System and hidden file attribute from all the files. Now just delete the files using the command del filename. example del Ravmon.exe. Delete all the files that are suspicious. To be on a safer side, just scan the USB drive with an anti virus program to check whether it is free of virus or not. Now remove the drive and plug it again. In most of the cases, the real culprit turns out to be the “Autorun.inf” file which mostly gets executed when someone clicks Ok in the dialog window which appears above. Thus the infections can spread

Security Tip

Disable the Autoplay feature of USB drives. If you disable the Autoplay feature of USB drives, then there are lesser chances of the virus spreading. A tool which can perform such a function is Tweak UI. Download it from here install it.

Run the program. Now you can disable the Autoplay feature of the removable drives as shown above. By following the above steps, you can keep your USB drives clean.

Update: Tweak UI is a freeware software you can download it here:http://www.filehippo.com/download_tweakui/

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Stop Autoplay In USB Flash Drives By Pressing One Keyboard Button

Most of the virus enters the computer through USB Flash drives, when we open the drive through autoplay the viru is a simple tip with which you can stop autoplay in USB Flash drives. Not only flash drives, it also stops autoplay for CD and DVD also.

While inserting CD, DVD or any flash drive, simply press and hold the Shift key, this will disable the autoplay dialog box. Holding down the Shift key will also block the applications that starts automatically.

Works fine in Windows XP and Windows Vista, Just give it a try and drop your comments.

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USB Disk Security 5.1.0.15 Portable

Compare USB Disk Security against other antivirus solutions, you will find out its highlights: USB Disk Security provides 100% protection against any threats via USB drive, however, the majority of other products are unable even to guarantee 90% protection.

USB Disk Security is the best antivirus software to permanently protect offline computer without the need for signature updates, but other antivirus software should update signature database regularly, and they cannot effectively protect offline computer. This light and easy to use solution is 100% compatible with all software and doesn't slow down your computer at all. You pay USB Disk Security once and get it all, however, other antivirus products should be paid for updates every year.

• 100% protection against any threats via USB drive
• The best solution to protect offline computer
• The world's fastest and smallest antivirus software
• Require no signature updates
• 100% compatible with all software
• Easy to use

Operating Systems: Windows Vista, Windows 95, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT, Windows 98.
System Requirement: 100MHz Processor or more, 16MB RAM or more.

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Stop Autoplay In USB Flash Drives By Pressing One Keyboard Button

Most of the virus enters the computer through USB Flash drives, when we open the drive through autoplay the viru is a simple tip with which you can stop autoplay in USB Flash drives. Not only flash drives, it also stops autoplay for CD and DVD also.

While inserting CD, DVD or any flash drive, simply press and hold the Shift key, this will disable the autoplay dialog box. Holding down the Shift key will also block the applications that starts automatically.

Works fine in Windows XP and Windows Vista, Just give it a try and drop your comments.

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