How to troubleshoot ejecting usb storage devices from windows xp?

I've been having this problem where I don't know if it's because I accidentally deleted the system volume information folder from my external hdd or not, but now, there's no eject button when you right click it in the properties menu and although I can see the green arrow icon in the task bar, when I click safely remove, it keeps saying that there is a project ejecting your usb device.

No processes or folders from the external is running. I don' think it's always good to simply power off the usb without detaching it first. How do you fix this?

From the information provided, I would save a copy of what is on the USB device on a folder on your hard drive, then I would format the USB device.

This should permit the device to be listed and have the EJECT or Prepare to remove option when the device is right click on in Windows Explorer.