If you have seen a problem in windows when you plug your usb-data drive and after transfer all your data to or from your usb-thumb drive or any other portable drive.
When you want to safely remove that hardware you found no ‘safely remove hardware icon’ in the taskbar as it got disappeared from the taskbar due to some reason that you don’t know.
So what to do in such a situation to safely remove the hardware device safely out of windows system ?
Open Start >>Run and type the following command(or just copy it).
RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
Press OK.
this command will open of the “Safely Remove Hardware” dialog: from which you can select your portable drive and remove it safely and properly.
How to solve the problem of safely remove icon getting disappeared out of the taskbar ?
- Right Click the taskbar in windows xp.
- go to properties and check the option which says “Hide inactive icons” and go to customize.
- find safely remove hardware and in the behavior category select hide when inactive or always show.
If still your problem is not solved leave a comment here i will be glad to answer you.
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14 replies on “How to safely remove your usb drive when Safely Remove Hardware icon disappear from taskbar in Win Xp.”
this is one of the ways, but what i follow when this happens with my pen drive is, i just click eject, and thats all, this is pretty much easier, but the proper solution is what you have talked about 🙂
Good Work!
Well you can create a shortcut for that to simplify the process. That will be much better.
yup u can simply create a .bat and place the command in the batch file itself and just double click only to initiate the command.
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Yes I know how it can be done. Just intend to tell others.
Good tip, these are simple yet useful tip, when in need we may not remember how to do it. 🙂
That was really useful.. eject won’t really disconnect your drive, tho. Thanks a lot for the tips
Thanx for the useful info…my problem is related. The safely remove icon does come, but whenever I try to click on Stop button in Safely Remove Hardware Dialog, it fails each time, saying The Device Can’t Be Stopped Right Now – i checked with Unlocker tool to verify if some process was blocking the drive – even if there is no process accessing the drive. Ultimately, I have to pull out the USB Drive without performing the Safely remove operation. Though I read on the web that in WinXP SP2 cached writing to portable drives is disabled, so I won’t lose any data if I’m sure the drive was not in use, but still, I’d prefer to disable the drive before removing it. plz advise
Thank you for this! Worked perfectly. I wonder why this icon disappears from the taskbar in the first place.
I have written a three method tutorial on safely removing usb drives. Check it out here : http://blog.ashfame.com/2008/02/safely-remove-usb-drive-safely-remove-hardware-icon-disappears-system-tray/
Thanks 🙂 … This works fine…
Thanks! Worked great.
In Windows XP, when a folder in USB is opened by Explorer, Safely Remove Hardware ejects the USB and the explorer is moved to next level of folder.
But when I am doing the same operation in Windows Vista, the USB is not ejected and an Error message is disaplyed as “The Device Cannot Be Stopped Right Now”
Any one know how to eject the USB when an folder opened in Vista?
I want something or nother to eat. Got any bisquits for sale in there?