Safety Remove Hardware

To prevent data loss or physical damage of the external hard drive, it’s better to perform ‘Safely Remove Hardware’.

When using the ‘Safe To Remove Hardware’, the icon may disappear or other errors could occur. Following are the solutions to those problems.

1. When ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon disappears

Windows 2000: The problem can be solved through the HotFix provided by Microsoft. Download and run the HotFix then re-boot.

Windows XP:
a) Restore Customize Notifications : Enables the icon display.

1. Right click the ‘Start’ button then select Properties.
2. After selecting Taskbar tab ▶ Notification area ▶ Hide inactive icons, click Customize.
3. When ‘Customize Notifications’ window is displayed, either find ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ then select ‘Always show’ or click ‘Restore Defaults’ button on right bottom side then check.

b) Checking the USB Device Registration Information: ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ can be selected directly.

1. On Start ▶ Control Panel ▶ System ▶ Hardware ▶ Device Manager, double click the ‘Disk Drive’.
2. When ‘Properties’ window is displayed, click ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ in Optimize for Performance section in Policies tab then ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ window pops up.

Windows Vista: The problem occurs due to incorrect device driver setting and should be solved by updating to the latest Service Pack.

2. External Hard Drive is not visible when clicking the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon.

Windows XP: When connected through a USB hub, the problem occurs because the OS recognizes the external hard drive as a non-portable device and also not as a device to remove.Thus it does not display the drive. The problem should be solved by shutting down the PC before removing the USB device. The problem should not occur when using the USB port of the system instead of using the USB hub.

3. ‘Safe To Remove Hardware’ message does not appear when clicking the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ icon.

Windows XP: The problem should be solved by updating to the latest Service Pack.

4. Even after running the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’, the external hard drive does not stop operating.

Windows Vista: The problem could be related to the system feature of continually supplying power to the external hard drive. It can be solved by shutting down the system while the drive is being connected then disconnecting it after the shut down.

5. After right clicking the external hard drive in Windows Explorer then running the ‘Safely Remove Hardware’, data loss occurs.

Windows Vista: The above menu is not available in XP when right clicking the mouse. The problem could occur when using the NTFS file system and can be solved by updating to the latest Service Pack.

Note: If the external drive is connected by the eSATA interface, the icon may not
appear in the system tray.