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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:
Article 10696 | Posted September 9, 2006 |
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Thanks Leo, your advice worked like a charm. After I created the shortcut you recommended, the little green arrowed icon reappeared in my Sys. Tray. Now I only hole it stays there! Thanks.
Posted by: Bruce at November 8, 2008 12:12 PMSimple clear explanation that did the job first time
Posted by: Len B at November 14, 2008 11:39 AMHi I have a Question please, I need help Leo.
When I plug my USB to the laptop I cannot see the contents of whats inside anymore.
All I see is Safely Remove HArdware.
When I go to My computer it says please insert a disk into removable disk (f) ???
Posted by: Saif at November 15, 2008 6:33 PMWhy cant I see the contents of my USB anymore thanks.
thanks for the command. you really solved my problem..!!
Posted by: adit at November 15, 2008 9:47 PMWow. I am glad I stumbled across this site. This is EXACTLY the kind of help I need. I was worried about losing info on my external hard drive by not having that safely remove icon to disconnect it. Can you help me lose weight too :-?
Posted by: PM at November 17, 2008 6:40 PMThanks.
Wow! It worked perfectly. Icon is back. Thanks for the answer. This is an amazing site. Made me glad I had a problem so I could find it.
Posted by: Dave at November 18, 2008 10:54 AMI'm having problem with USB removing hardware. Everything goes normal, but after you do so, the hardware still powered ON. So physicaly it not STOP, coz it might efect on my hardware(portable hardisk). I have this problem on Vista Ultimate but not on my Windows XP (dual boot), please advise, thank you.
Posted by: Steve at November 18, 2008 10:51 PMFor 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.
Posted by: John Murrell at November 19, 2008 6:36 AMExcellent easy to understand solution and workaround. Thanks, Leo!
Posted by: Jon Moser at November 20, 2008 1:16 PMI found your site and you succinctly answered my question and it worked. I'll be back with more questions, I'm sure. Thanks so much!
Posted by: Jan Caloia at November 20, 2008 8:25 PM