|
Summary: The 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon can occasionally disappear. It turns out there's a simple workaround to safely remove hardware anyway. I have several USB devices, and I'm used to using the "safely remove hardware" icon in the taskbar before I unplug any of them. All of a sudden that icon has disappeared, and I see no way to "safely remove hardware". What do I do? Can I just unplug the device I want to remove anyway? Or do I need to reboot every time this happens? This happens to me all the time. The remove hardware icon in the taskbar's notification area disappears occasionally for reasons unknown. I've never actually had a problem just unplugging the device anyway, but it still makes me feel uncomfortable to do so. So, I stumbled onto a fairly reasonable workaround. • Normally, when you have a removable USB device installed, Windows displays a small icon in the notification area (the right most collection of icons) of your task bar:
If you hover your mouse over it you'll see it's tool-tip: "Safely Remove Hardware". The purpose of "Safely Remove Hardware" is simple: it's how you tell Windows that you're about to remove a device so that Windows can finish whatever it needs to do with it. In the case of disks, for example, Windows flushes all disk buffers, avoiding things like potential corruption. And that's the fear - if you remove something like a USB thumb drive without first telling Windows, it's possible to corrupt the contents of the drive. In practice that doesn't happen often, but it's possible. The problem is that occasionally, for reasons unknown, the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon can disappear. Even though there are devices installed that require it - it's nowhere to be found. When this happens, what I've found is that you can click on Start, Run..., and type in: RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll And press OK. That will bring up the "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog:
From this dialog you can click on the device you want to remove, and press Stop. Once Windows is done with it, you can then remove the device. Of course a side effect I noticed when I did this was that the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon reappeared. If it happens often enough, you can create a desktop shortcut for that geeky looking command. Right click on your desktop, click on New, and then click on Shortcut. In the resulting dialog box enter that "RunDLL32" command listed above: That will bring up the "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog:
Click on Next and change the name to "Safely Remove Hardware":
Now, whenever you need to remove hardware, and the icon isn't present on the taskbar notification area, you can simply double click on this new shortcut and get the job done. Related:
FREE Newsletter FREE weekly updates by email with the latest answers, tips, tricks and fun information you won't find anywhere else. The most recent newsletter: You can also subscribe via RSS: Need more details? Click here. Note: I do not spam. Check out my privacy policy. Naturaly, every issue includes simple instructions to unsubscribe. Kudos
for Ask Leo! Article Useful? Digg It - Bookmark It on Del.icio.us • Recent Comments
When my 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon disappears, I click on the arrow that expands the icon tray and there it is! It wasn't gone - just hiding! Posted by: George at September 15, 2006 02:36 PMSUPERB tip, prof.Leo!
Maybe just one possibly related thing to note; I've noticed that if I plug my USB drive into one of the available USB ports, that icon doesn't appear at all in the first place (the window on the other hand does appear), and I can't use that port at all (i.e. the drive doesn't appear in the list of available drives), while also, I think that plugging-in the USB drive into that particular port (if I recall correctly) generates the message saying something like: "The drive will not work at its maximum speed..." (and adds: "...but it is possible to use it at the maximum speed.", or again, something like that. ________ take cares, I have an old version (512MB) mp3 player which I connect to the computer every now and then but I don't often (almost never) use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' to remove my device. Sometime some of the music stops playing in the middle. I wonder if my arrogance is causing the problem. Posted by: Rezwan at September 16, 2006 03:57 PMI followed Mr. Leo's enlightened suggestion, then thought, "What the heck, I'll put the shortcut in my Quick Launch toolbar." Does Microsoft have an "official" remedy for the reappearance of the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon disappearing act? Posted by: Chuck Baker at September 18, 2006 12:54 AMCrud, so I brought up the dialog and made a shortcut, but my thumb drives aren't on the list for me to remove them. Yet they still show up in my computer. Ticks me off, as the sound icon is also gone from my taskbar even though I have it set to always appear and even though I keep getting it back somehow or another. Computers, they hate me. Anyway, wonderful article and at least I can get to the dialog now! Posted by: Rachel at September 19, 2006 05:57 AMI've tried EVERY solution I could find on the internet. SHortcuts, changing the hardware settings, etc, etc... I found that the REAL problem is UpNp. As soon as I disabled UpNp, the icon came back and I've never had any problems with it. I found a small download that easily and safely disables UpNp at : http://www.grc.com/unpnp/unpnp.htm. UpNp was the real problem, all the other things were just short fixes. Posted by: Mike at September 26, 2006 11:03 AMMany thanks for your tip on resolving a frustrating problem. I created
a shortcut per your instructions and it works fine. UpNp WAS the problem! Evn shortcuts wouldn't get the icon to load at startup. Many thanks, the UnPn disbale download helped and also fixed the security problems with UpNp. Posted by: Daniel at October 19, 2006 11:51 AMThanks to Leo for the RunDll32 tip! In many cases one can just unplug the USB device without using Safely remove.. However, it appears to me that when updating a Briefcase XP is slow to flush the buffers and I frequently end up with the Briefcase broken. This will hopefully solve the problem. Per Posted by: P Witte at November 9, 2006 03:14 AMPost a comment on "Safely Remove Hardware: where
did the icon go? How do I safely remove hardware without it?":
|
Important! Leo's Picks |
Question? - Ask Leo!
Archives
• Administration • EMail • Fun Sites • General Computing • Hardware • Instant Messaging • Internet • Interviewing • Microsoft Office • MSN HotMail • Networking • Newsletter • Podcasts • Quick • Recommendations • Reference Sites • RSS • Short Answers • Tech Sites • Video Tips • Viruses and Malware • Web • What is ... • Windows • 
(Many Pages. A work in Progress.)
Entire site Copyright ©
2003-2006, Puget Sound Software,
LLC and Leo A. Notenboom
Terms,
Conditions & Privacy
