Why Can’t I Eject My External Hard Drive Like a Thumb Drive?

It’s weird, right? Most external drives I’ve used allow for ejecting, but sometimes something freaks out and doesn't let you do it. If that happens, I usually just shut down my computer to ensure everything is safely disconnected.

For some larger external hard drives, you won’t find the eject option in File Explorer, but you can still find it in the system tray. It's a simple workaround!

I think it's a mix of things. Sometimes internal drives show up as ejectable, and sometimes they don't. You can disable write caching to make the eject function work, but Windows has changed how this all works. If you see an LED on your external drive, make sure it's not active, and try to close all apps using it before you unplug. If it still gives you issues, just shut down your system.

I've had similar experiences, especially with larger drives (like 1TB or more). I typically select the drive in the library and then eject it from there.