Summary: The "Safely Remove Hardware" icon can occasionally disappear. It turns out there's a simple workaround to safely remove hardware anyway.
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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.
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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:
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Is there a way to "Safely Remove Hardware" from a batch file? Automating the steps required to "safely remove hardware" isn't at all obvious, but it is possible.
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How can I tell if I have USB 2.0? USB (Universal Serial Bus) 2.0 is a significantly faster version of USB 1.1. Determining which you have is not at all obvious. But it is fairly easy.
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Why won't my system recognize my USB device? We go over some quick fixes to make sure your system recognizes USB devices.
Article C2783 - September 9, 2006
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.
Posted by: Nicholas at July 2, 2009 11:19 PMi'm using the naevius usb antivirus that has feature "safely remove" for usb devices.
Posted by: Steven77 at July 6, 2009 10:17 PMthere is a website: http://www.naevius.com/usb_antivirus.htm
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!
Posted by: Bob Ress at July 17, 2009 10:14 AMDoes 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.
Posted by: Robert at August 20, 2009 2:25 PMI 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.
Posted by: Hernan Baquerizo at September 18, 2009 11:34 AMGo 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.
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
Posted by: Ninad Soman at October 1, 2009 7:49 AMTo 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.
Posted by: Curt at October 23, 2009 10:11 AMyou can just start->run->control hotplug.dll
Posted by: Bob at October 31, 2009 7:57 PMThe icon "Safely Remove Hardware" had disappeared on my Laptop
Posted by: Sam Azar at November 15, 2009 1:13 PMI 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...
hi,
I tried several of the solutions above
- then I put
Posted by: weselowski at November 16, 2009 10:23 AM" 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.