Comments for Safely Remove Hardware: where did the icon go? How do I safely remove hardware without it?

Comment from weselowski on 2009-11-16

2009-11-16T18:23:46Z

hi,

I tried several of the solutions above

- then I put
" control hotplug.dll " in the Windows Task Manager under New Task and that worked instantly. I was able to stop the external hard drive, I was able to safely remove it and my taskbar icon came back.

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Comment from Sam Azar on 2009-11-15

2009-11-15T21:13:38Z

The icon "Safely Remove Hardware" had disappeared on my Laptop
I tried Control Panel / Administrative Tools /Services. I set "Removable Tools" to automatic as recommended by Hernan Baquerizo.
After reboot, the icon reappeared. So this solution worked.
I must note however that I checked the same setting on my Desktop where the icon was present (as it should) and the setting was on "Manual"....
This shows there is still something else playing...

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Comment from Bob on 2009-10-31

2009-11-01T02:57:41Z

you can just start->run->control hotplug.dll

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Comment from Curt on 2009-10-23

2009-10-23T17:11:58Z

To display the right icon navigate to the Shortcut properties and choose Change Icon. Change the "Look for icons in..." prompt to "%SystemRoot%\system32\hotplug.dll". Choose the first icon.

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Comment from Ninad Soman on 2009-10-01

2009-10-01T14:49:09Z

I am posting a comment quite late, but today was the first time I experienced this issue and came across the post.
Firstly, let me tell you that the article was good and resolved the issue.

You can also try out the following :
1. Kill explorer.exe process from task manager.
2. Restore it back by creating "New Task" explorer.exe from Task Manager.
3. This should bring the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon back in the system tray.

It worked for me, let me know your experience.

Thanks

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Comment from Hernan Baquerizo on 2009-09-18

2009-09-18T18:34:49Z

I found accidentally a simple solution to the missing "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. Turning the "Removable Storage" service from "Manual" to "Automatic" will keep the icon in the Tray at all times.
Go to Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services. Scroll down on the right panel until the Removable Storage service is noted. Right click, choose "Properties". On the "General" tab change the "Startup type" by pushing the down arrow and selecting "Automatic". Do Apply or OK. I hope it works for you.
P.S.: I still do not know why it went away on the first place.

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Comment from Robert on 2009-08-20

2009-08-20T21:25:04Z

Does anyone have an answer for doing the reverse? Ever since I upgraded to XP, I have that stupid icon and I do not need, use or want it. I've seen installable programs that allow you to remove it, but I don't want to have to install yet another one use application to do something that should be possible with a simple registry edit or something.

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Comment from Bob Ress on 2009-07-17

2009-07-17T17:14:56Z

Great, just what I've been looking for! I use my USB drive at the library sometimes and there is no "safely remove" icon; and right-clicking is disabled so I can't even "eject" the drive. Thanks a bunch!

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Comment from Steven77 on 2009-07-06

2009-07-07T05:17:30Z

i'm using the naevius usb antivirus that has feature "safely remove" for usb devices.
there is a website: http://www.naevius.com/usb_antivirus.htm

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Comment from Nicholas on 2009-07-02

2009-07-03T06:19:46Z

I have a Nokia N95 8gb. When plugging it in to my xp laptop, PC Suite runs perfectly despite the phone not showing up on My Computer! I assume that because it doesn't show up on My Computer the Safely Remove Hardware button is missing. I have to shut down my laptop before unplugging my phone to avoid damaging it. The Safely Remove Button used to show up and the phone also used to show under My Computer until I was prompted by PC Suite to update the software. All other usb devices which I plug into my laptop show up on My Computer and the Safely Remove Harware button works. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks a lot. PS: I have tried the fix mentioned above but it doesn't work due to the fact that the phone doesn't show up on My Computer.

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Comment from Milton Lopez on 2009-06-30

2009-06-30T23:30:04Z

We use an external enclosure with 5 SATA disks that was first recognized by our Windows 2003 SP2 server as a set of removable devices. Now the icon is gone and the disks are behaving as non-removable ones. Even when I use the solution above the list of removable devices is empty. Any hints would be appreciated.

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Comment from Mike on 2009-06-17

2009-06-17T13:18:30Z

Brill, perfect fix!
Icon has not reappeared but created shortcut as indicated and this works a treat.
Many Thanx

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Comment from k.fish on 2009-06-16

2009-06-16T20:00:47Z

i tried this to fix my computer worked a treat and put back the icon thank you

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Comment from Sue on 2009-06-09

2009-06-09T08:32:38Z

Worked first time on Win XP Home. That will save me so much time faffing with unhappy Windows error messages. Cheers!! I've made a shortcut and it works too. No complaints here :)

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Comment from Lisa on 2009-05-25

2009-05-25T18:23:29Z

Did as you said, but no device is listed in the "safely remove" box that comes up. What do I do now?

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Comment from Anne on 2009-05-25

2009-05-25T07:38:17Z

Thanks for the info. I used the command you gave and it brought up the box as you said but it did not have my storage device in the box so I still had a problem. Any ideas?

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Comment from Aaron on 2009-05-23

2009-05-24T02:04:39Z

Thanks SO much.

Worked Perfectly!

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Comment from Eduardo on 2009-05-14

2009-05-14T16:04:04Z

Thanks, Leo. I have this problem on a computer at work but the icon only disappears when a member of Advanced Users logs on. Administrators have no problem, never. I´m really worried.

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Comment from Sylvia on 2009-05-13

2009-05-13T19:26:57Z

Your advice on how to get the Safely Remove Hardare does not work on my home edition XP. I first typed it exactly the way you said to type it and then tried every deviation on it I could think. It always said the location could not be found.

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Comment from davesam on 2009-05-07

2009-05-07T14:45:05Z

I did as u said...but still it didnt worked for me...The USB mass storage device is not showing on "Safely Remove Hardware"...........this is my nokia mobile that i connected...That icon even appears below in tray when only if i connect ipod..for that only it works.... ? can i do ?

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Comment from Rita on 2009-05-03

2009-05-03T17:36:28Z

Leo: Many thanks!

I had a very important file become corrupted -- probably due to the icon missing; and me not "safely removing the mass storage media" properly.
Your solution works like a charm.
KUDOS! Hopefully corrupt files are HISTORY

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Comment from Tyrone on 2009-04-29

2009-04-29T22:27:52Z

Hi leo

thanks a million for this fix !!! dunno how youve found a strange command like this .. but its something thats bugged me for a while ..
the wonders of the world wide web..!!
thanks again and regards
tyrone

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Comment from drew on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T16:38:52Z

Wow this tips is awesome! thanks,I've learned a lot. I will share this knowledge to those who are in need.

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Comment from John McLean on 2009-04-18

2009-04-18T12:14:28Z

I was very irritated when the safely remove hardware icon disappeared. Thanks for your help it works fine now: Regards John McLean

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Comment from Jeff on 2009-04-16

2009-04-16T15:30:22Z

Hi Leo,

Thanks for thhis tip. I agree that most files don't corrupt when you just pull them out. The one big exception seems to be camera memory cards. I've yanked those out in the past and thereafter, they very often have a tendency to corrupt pictures. Lost 15 pictures of sharks that way on a recent diving trip in Mexico. They were once in a lifetime shots. I absolutely needed the information on this page to make sure that never happened again!

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Comment from Steve Geisinger on 2009-03-25

2009-03-25T16:13:15Z

Hi - thank you for the information found in your website - it is very informative. I did click on START, RUN and then typed in the RunnDll.32.exe stuff and after finishing typing in all of that I clicked OK. Windows came back at me with a red X and said Error in Shell32.dll Missing entry: control_runDLL. I recently had all of my MS OS reloaded because I had a OS .net SP2 problem. Everything works OK now, but now this pops up. How can I get the "safely remove hardware dialog" box to come up without messing up my nice new OS reload? Thank you.

You must type it in exactly as shown, and that includes upper/lower case. control_runDLL and Control_RunDLL are not the same.

- Leo
26-Mar-2009

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Comment from Jun de Lira on 2009-03-23

2009-03-23T11:00:48Z

Thanks a lot Leo. Its hard to find Help here in Japan because its all in their Complex Writing system, I wonder how their programs run in Kanji and Hiragana and Katakana. But they do. hehehe. Good Hacking of Microsoft XP program. Maybe this Fault in XP was not fixed by Microsoft as it seems a small thing. Thanks again

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Comment from Maureen Morris on 2009-01-15

2009-01-15T15:15:31Z

I used your advice re creating a shortcut to safely remove hardware for a slightly differenct problem which had started to occur all of a sudden. After using the icon on the task bar successfully since the purchase of my computer 9 months ago I suddenly experienced a problem. Every time I clicked on the icon, before the message re selecting the hardware appeared, my broadband connection was briefly disconnected and I had a message on the screen that it was dialling up again. The message that it had reconnected obscured the message re selecting the hardware. This was extremely annoying as I had to wait until the broadband message disappeared before I could select the item I wished to remove. By using your method I now have access to the safely remove hardware dialogue box - keeping well away from the icon on the task bar. I cannot understand how on earth it had decided to disconnect my broadband as I was nowhere near the icon re my broadband when it happened. Anyway your solution to the disappearing icon worked for my "faulty" icon.

Many thanks

Maureen

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Comment from Tony Burke on 2008-11-26

2008-11-26T17:02:59Z

Since my 'safely remove hardware' icon disappeared in Windows XP I have discovered that if I log off and on again - takes about 20 seconds in total - the icon reappears.

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Comment from payton on 2008-11-22

2008-11-23T02:24:56Z

Hi Leo I was given the following to hide the icon while keeping the hot-plug filter enabled. I'm assuming it is working as the icon is no longer there, but how can I find out if the hot-plug filter is truly still enabled? I'd just as soon not see the icon.

To Enable hot-plug filter but hide safe-remove icon ( i386 platform ):

Add and set registry: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\xfilt\Parameter0”

To DWORD value “0x80000000”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To enable hot-plug filter and also shows safe-remove icon ( i386 platform ):

Add and set registry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\xfilt\Parameter0”

To DWORD value “0x80000001”
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Enable hot-plug filter but hide safe-remove icon ( x64 platform ):

Add and set registry: “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\xfiltx64\Parameter0”

To DWORD value “0x80000000”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To enable hot-plug filter and also shows safe-remove icon ( x64 platform ):

Add and set registry “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\xfiltx64\Parameter0”

To DWORD value “0x80000001”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To disable hot-plug filter, set “Parameter0” to zero value.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Comment from John Murrell on 2008-11-19

2008-11-19T14:36:53Z

For a finishing touch you can change the icon for your new shortcut to a larger version of the one missing from the toolbar.

Right click on the Icon, select properties and then select change Icom. From there you need to browse to the directory where 'hotplug.dll' lives usually in your windows/system32 folder. Then select 'hotplug.dll' and you should get a choice of 3 icons - one of these is the one used in the toolbar. Select this and close the dialog boxes and your shortcut should have the correct Icon.

I put mine on the bottom right of the desktop next to the toolbar.

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Comment from Liverbird43 on 2008-10-06

2008-10-06T22:30:58Z

To Harold who posted ... "I have the opposite problem ... safely remove pops up and makes the sound randomly".

Harold you must have some sort of usb device either plugged in externally or internally on your pc .... anything externally check that it is firmly connected to the usb port.
Check your device manager before and after you hear the sound ... do you have a device showing that wasn't there earlier?

Some newer pc's use usb connection internally for built in card readers ... the connection may not be too good ??
Check in "my computer" or in vista known as "computer" if the card readers sometimes are not present.

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Comment from Robert S on 2008-09-27

2008-09-28T04:35:09Z

I have Windows XP Media Center Edition and my Safely Remove Hardware tray icon likes to magically reappear after I click Log Off at the Start button and then click my User icon to get back into Windows right away. Since the light on the card reader stays on during the Log Off/On cycle, once Windows is finished reloading, I can use the icon. What I don't like is that it the entire Media Center (where all those little card slots are in front) is then useless until a full Restart. Annoying, but a small price to pay to keep from possibly corrupting those expensive little cards!

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Comment from David Brandt on 2008-09-18

2008-09-18T16:11:26Z

Re: Safely Remove Hardware: where did the icon go?

Great solution, works for me, I've been stressing about that problem for weeks.

Is there a way to do that for the battery icon which gets us both the adjust power, and power meter panels?

At one point I was loosing the Dell Quick Set icon too but, some how I was able to add it to the quick launch panel but, I can't remember how I did it.

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Comment from Douglas McClure on 2008-09-07

2008-09-07T12:50:59Z

Thanks -- your answer was exactly what I needed. Since this problem happens a lot to me, I put a shortcut to this command on my desktop, as you suggested. I went a baby step further and changed the shortcut's icon to the same one as the taksbar icon. This icon is located in the file hotplug.dll.

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Comment from Arconius Remus on 2008-08-12

2008-08-12T07:16:59Z

Thanks. This is a great solution to the problem.
There are those who don't see the icon on the little task bar and there are PCs that have a bug that stops the Safely Remove Hardware icon from appearing there.
Keep up the good work, Leo!

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Comment from Scott A. Weir on 2008-08-11

2008-08-11T23:21:34Z

Very interesting, and useful. I went through all 138 comments, found some old friends, and met a remarkable group of commentators from self-admitted computer illiterates to highly knowledgeable geeks to geeks not quite as knowledgeable as they think they are. Modern computers are too complex for anyone to assume s/he knows it all.

I have my icon back, and have saved a lot more information on related topics (and bookmarked this site). One thing no one seems to have explained: How DO you distinguish among several USB devices when some should not be removed? I turned off my external backup drive once by mistake, though it came back up on the next boot.

I'll send the coffee later, possibly by a different route.

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Comment from Hernan Baquerizo on 2008-06-30

2008-06-30T13:54:43Z

Leo's solution worked but required several steps as he explained. Evenmore, the "icon" would go away after removing the device or re-booting. I accidentally discovered (as usual)that the video driver (for the integrated Intel Chipset and for unknown reasons) was causing the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon to disappear. After un-installing and re-installing the driver the "icon" reappeared in the system tray. It is likely that other scenarios are also due to conflicting drivers.

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Comment from Mike Baker on 2008-06-22

2008-06-22T11:07:57Z

I was missing the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon & your solution worked fine. I was also missing some other icons and needed to dig a little deeper. I found the following web site: http://winhlp.com/node/16 It turns out the problem is fairly complex with a variety of solutions. I was able to find a work around that seems to solve all my missing systray icon problems.

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Comment from John Quince on 2008-05-29

2008-05-29T13:06:15Z

LOL.
1. Insert USB drive.
2. Open File Explorer.
3. Right click, select properties for USB drive.
4. Select Hardware tab.
5. Select USB drive.
6. Select Properties.
7. Select Policies tab.
8. Feel like a jerk for starting a blog about something you don't understand and spreading misinformation.

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Comment from Leo on 2008-05-28

2008-05-28T17:07:45Z

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

You need to type EXACTLY what the article said. You typed
(in your comment, at least):

RunD11.32.exe

That is incorrect. The article states:

RunDll32.exe

That's DLL, and no extra period.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFIPZFVCMEe9B/8oqERAoj4AJ9HxsvOOJyrEDXu/FbIcpri/YuTsgCdEgO3
ExuB0cPyTWeAajSSCKX6ulY=
=goqC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Comment from Phil on 2008-05-27

2008-05-27T17:34:15Z

I followed your directions on safely removing a USB and the system keeps telling me that it cannot find RunD11.32.exe shell32.dll,Control_Run DLLhotplug.dll. What do I do now? I don't want to corrupt any saved data on the USB

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Comment from Wayne on 2008-04-24

2008-04-25T04:29:27Z

My icon for "safely remove hardware" suddenly disappeared from the system tray on my notebook. I am running Windows XP Pro. After trying the suggested fixes and workarounds, I decided to run the System File Checker in case any related files were corrupted. In the "Run" command window, I typed sfc /scannow After twenty minutes the scan was complete, System File Checker closed, and when I checked the hidden icons in the system tray, the Safely Remove Hardware icon was present at last. Later, I found that I had to update my Windows Script files back to version 5.7 because these had been replaced to the earlier versions that came with service pack 2. Otherwise, no other problems with updated files being overwritten by SFC that I am aware of. Unfortunately, System File Checker did not give me any info or summary after it completed its fixes, it just closed leaving me wondering for a moment if it accomplished anything or not. I haven't checked the log files on the hard drive yet, but maybe there is some info there.

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Comment from Tomek on 2008-04-09

2008-04-10T05:01:40Z

Thanks for the tip, but I did this instead: Start - Administrative Tools - Services. Stop and Disable Universal Plug and Play Device Host and SSDP Discovery Service. After that I also switched Behavior (in Customize Notifications) of the Safely Remove Hardware icon to Show Always (right click on Taskbar - Properties - Customize). Then I restarted Windows and the Safely Remove icon moved to Current Items and back in its old place.
Works just fine as I don't like having any icons on my desktop.

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Comment from Jason on 2008-04-09

2008-04-09T19:23:12Z

Thank God for BLOGS! This happened to me the other day. I was thinking what did I or my kids do now to the computer to make the icon vanish. This is a life saver advise since I use so many USB attachments with not enough USB ports. Knowing the safely remove is ready from experience and know I could not live without it. I dreaded the thought of rebooting everytime just to disconnect a USB device each time. THANKS A MILLION!

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Comment from Dave Porter on 2008-04-04

2008-04-04T10:27:55Z

Just a tiny but nice add-on to the neat article on getting the icon to reappear in the taskbar.
After setting up the shortcut on the desktop, right click on it and choose "properties", then "change icon". In the browse space browse to "hotplug.dll"
You will then be offered the REAL icon, not just a blank sheet of paper. Choose that and you have the instantly recognizable icon on your desktop.

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Comment from Chris van der Geugten on 2008-03-20

2008-03-20T08:56:33Z

I found that windows has two groups of items in its taskbar: Current items and past items. Now when the 'safely remove hardware' icon is moved to the past items it is not visible, even when its property is set to "show always". Probably the meaning of this is that Current items are active and Past items are non-active. You can see tis when you open the propertis of the taskbar. When I applied the work around mentioned here , the function/item is moved to Current (active) items.
My conclusion is that in the registry somewhere this property is set and reset by certain triggers like our work around.It would be nice if we can move items btween these 2 groups in the properties window of the taskbar.

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Comment from Michael on 2008-03-13

2008-03-13T13:36:27Z

Hi - this happened to me this morning, so thanks for the tip. Just thought I'd post (so that people take this seriously) that I bought last summer a Maxtor external hard drive (for foreign publications I subscribe to in PDF - I tend do download them at work because it's faster) - NOTHING in their literature said that the safely-remove-hardware step was necessary before unplugging it; I only had that icon because I also have a plug-in wireless card. I learned that it was necessary the hard way, when a few files (just the ones I'd downloaded that day) were corrupted. Worst comes to worst and you can't "safely remove" your hardware the proper way, at least wait until the device seems to be idle.

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Comment from Frances on 2008-02-17

2008-02-18T01:25:28Z

I noticed that after I installed the newest update to my computer that my safely remove hardware icon along with three other icons have disappeared and I can download the programs to get them back but they don't stay once I have to restart my computer. I also no longer have any dates where I can set my computer back to a different date and when I tried the run command that you have to get the safely remove hardware back RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll I got an error message that said: Run DLL: Erro in shell32.dll missing entry:Control_RunDLL Would you know why this would happen after a windows download. I have winXP the other programs are Webshots, Weather desktop,and the icon to show that my virus scan is running along with my remove hardware icon. Please help thank you

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Comment from Priscilla on 2008-02-10

2008-02-10T09:39:11Z

The eject drive method does not work as it tells me "is currently busy" etc :-(((
Your (magical) rundll32 solution is JUST GREAT! I created the shortcut, and it stays now proudly on my desktop!
thank you thank you thank you thank you !

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Comment from Peter on 2008-01-30

2008-01-30T15:40:02Z

I removed a thumb drive without safely removing it and when I plugged it in again it came up as unformatted - all data gone. It may not happen often, bit it happens!

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Comment from Mahesh (isoftgroup) on 2007-12-20

2007-12-21T06:34:52Z

Hi,
Other way is to diconnect USB from computer is just Go in My-Computer select the concerned USB drive Right Click and select EJECT, then Windows flush all disk buffers to avoiding things like potential corruption. and you can remove ur USB from machine.

Mahesh Chavan

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Comment from Janet Cornwell on 2007-11-17

2007-11-17T17:53:55Z

An easy way to keep the "safely remove hardware" icon on the taskbar is to simply right click on it (near the area where the time is displayed), select "customize notifications", select customize again and then change the safely remove hardware icon to "always show". If your machine gets confused about when it should show it, this will fix it. This also works for removing the icon as well.

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Comment from Will on 2007-11-13

2007-11-13T08:55:48Z

Very useful. Thanks Leo. Also the Safely Remove Hardware icon is in the hotplug.dll if you want to make your shortcut pretty. The hotplug.dll is in the system32 dir under your windows dir.

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Comment from SecureType on 2007-10-02

2007-10-02T15:33:05Z

The person who finds the answer to the following will become the grand national champion of all computer gurus, because this has never been addressed in all of my searches:

SecureType May 19, 2007 | 1:36 pm

For windows Vista, there was a “Safely Remove” right-click context menu item for a removable hard drive on my HP media center PC. This has disappeared, and it was much easier to use, like the “Eject” command, than using the tray icon. You didn’t have to sort thru a bunch of cryptic devices to remove the one you needed.

How do we get this context menu item back?

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-07-24

2007-07-24T22:06:42Z

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Your USB Ram stick was probably assigned a drive letter (D:, E: or something
like that). Search for that using Process Explorer
(http://ask-leo.com/d-procexp) - "find handle" function. That could tell you
what program is accessing the device.

Leo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)

iD8DBQFGpnfgCMEe9B/8oqERApZyAJ4wSVmdoYijxyvVRT8S6CImDbvjsQCfR3ZR
c/NLdSrFFqfFd8CDPwphMjo=
=91rj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Comment from Steve on 2007-07-24

2007-07-24T18:43:35Z

I have Windows Vista. Whenever I use a USB memory stick and I'm finished, I click on Safely Remove Hardware, but I get a message saying that it is unable to disconnect because something is in use. But I get this message when all applications are closed. I tried looking at the Task Manager, and it shows no applications running. When I look in Properties of the memory stick's drive the indexing box is unchecked, so it's not that. I end up having to shut down the computer in order to pull out the memory stick. How can I find out what's going on and fix it?

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Comment from Anon on 2007-05-19

2007-05-19T20:32:52Z

Thanks!

For those who need it, the 'default' icon for the 'Safely Remove Hardware' program is located in a file called 'hotplug.dll'.

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Comment from Jorgen on 2007-05-11

2007-05-11T19:15:52Z

Thanks Leo! This happens all the time on my Thinkpad T42, but has never happened on my Thinkpad T30. Strange. This should be fixed by the software programmers. Especially since they have forced all computers to report failures over the Internet to them. They seem to have missed this one. I wonder if IBM or Microsoft is to blame?

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Comment from Terngu Nomishan on 2007-03-28

2007-03-29T00:38:34Z

Wow, this was exactly what I needed. Actually, I was just looking for a nice website with the instructions on how to do it the longer way (I found out this way but forgot where: Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager/Disk Drive/Properties/policies link) but this shortcut is amazing! If anyone was wondering where to find the icon you would normally see in the tray to use as the icon of your newly created shortcut and/or how to change it, just right click the shortcut you created, select Properties, then click Change Icon under the Shortcut tab and browse for that hotplug.dll (should be here: C:\WINDOWS\system32\hotplug.dll).

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Comment from Danny Wolfman on 2007-03-25

2007-03-25T20:33:31Z

To the best of my understanding, the problem stems from a power breakdown and subsequent recovery - with the USB not plugged-in. The VERY VERY SIMPLE remedy that I've found is to plug-in the USB device and RESTART the machine. BINGO, the icon is there.
Danny

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Comment from techbard on 2007-03-02

2007-03-02T21:36:00Z

You can disable the write cache so that you can remove the thumb drive without going through the "safely remove" routine. Generally the write cache is of minimal benefit anyway when writing to such a device. To disable, plug in the device,
right click My Computer, choose properties, choose the Hardware tab, choose Device Manager, choose Disk drives, right-click your device and choose properties, choose Policies tag, then click on the radio button for "Optimize for quick removal". Click OK and you'll be able to remove the thumb drive anytime you want as long as nothing is being written to the device. (lots of clicks, huh...)

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Comment from David on 2007-02-19

2007-02-19T12:47:26Z

Hello. I've just read this article and I'm having the exact opposite problem. I've got the safely remove hardware icon next to my clock, but I've got no external devices plugged into any of the slots of my USB storage device (drives F,G,H, and I). Also, when I try to remove the mysterious "generic audio devices" from these drives using the remove hardware dialog box, the drives become unusable until I restart my system. Any way of telling the computer that there are no cards or devices plugged into these slots and that it should stop prompting me to remove what isn't there?? Thanks for your help!

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Comment from George on 2007-02-11

2007-02-12T00:42:33Z

I found this very useful creating the "Safely Remove Hardware" shortcut on my desktop. :) There is also another work-around through the Device Manager where if for instance its an EXT USB HD then one can click on the sub-heading disk drives in Device Manager and then select the HD in question by right clicking it and selecting properties then click on the second tab "Policies" and at the bottom where it says "Optimize for Perfomanace" you will see "Safely Remove Hardware". Just click on "Safely Remove Hardware" and the Safely Remove Hardware Tool will pop-up. Hope it helps :)

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Comment from tronix on 2007-01-05

2007-01-05T09:11:31Z

...Another way to safely remove hardware without using the shortcut is to navigate to My Computer, right click on any storage device->properties->hardware->highlight the device that you want to remove->properties->policies tab->there you will find Safely Remove Hardware link in blue. Click on it and voila!

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Comment from tronix on 2007-01-05

2007-01-05T09:04:39Z

Works like a charm-thanks! to terrycotter: To get the icon (assuming you are using XPSP2) copy and paste this path for the location of the icon %SystemRoot%\$NtServicePackUninstall$\hotplug.dll
You could also do a system search for hotplug.dll with a file size of 134KB.
Good luck!

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Comment from Frank on 2006-12-21

2006-12-21T14:38:56Z

The URL for the download is now

http://www.grc.com/UnPnP/UnPnP.htm

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Comment from Sonny on 2006-12-14

2006-12-15T02:59:06Z

I tried the first time typing in ignoring Capital letters and it didnt work. So now I realized that you pretty much have to type in exactly the way you see on the web, with all that Capital letters and stuffs.
Some of the devices that didnt appear even when you called the list up may be becuase they are set to be that way? Some of USB locks for certain software are that way.
Thankyou very much Leo.

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Comment from CanonDell on 2006-12-03

2006-12-04T05:09:57Z

Hey thanks for the tip on how to bring up the "safely remove hardware icon" back up. But I have a problem. So I have a Canon Powershot s2 camera and whenever I connect it via a usb to my laptop, the "safely remove hardware icon" doesn't show up. When I do your "RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll" I do get the "Safely Remove Hardware" box up, but my camera is not listed there? How do I get my camera to show under the "Safely Remove Hardware" box. It used to show up there long time ago. I can access my camera from my laptop etc., I just don't know of a safe way to unplug its usb. Do you have any ideas?

Thanks!

- S

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Comment from calvin on 2006-11-30

2006-12-01T03:35:44Z

Thanks!

I have been getting serious about keeping 2-3 backup copies of my digital photos (I've taken over 40,000 at this point), and I just had to datamine a &*%$@ Maxtor 300GB drive to claim some stuff thatwas single stored (I used Nucleus Kernel NTFS) to get the images off a 'corrupted' drive)

I haven't been using the 'safely remove' because the stupid icon was always MIA

I googled remove disk safely icon - and this page was near the top - Thanks!

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Comment from P Witte on 2006-11-09

2006-11-09T11:14:00Z

Thanks 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

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Comment from Mike on 2006-09-26

2006-09-26T18:03:58Z

I'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.

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Comment from Rezwan on 2006-09-16

2006-09-16T22:57:40Z

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.

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Comment from Ivan Tadej on 2006-09-15

2006-09-15T23:12:41Z

Thanks much Leo, what a great tip (I just can't wait to share it with others, lol); and by the way, I really love these various functions hidden in the rundll32.exe library ...

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,
Ivan Tadej, Slovenija, EU
http://www.tadej-ivan.be/

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