Safe To Remove Hardware

[Wijono]

When I want to remove a flash drive, I will click “Safely Remove Hardware” icon on the system tray, then click the drive, then a popup balloon that says “Safe to Remove Hardware” will come up, so that I then pull off the flash drive.

Since recently that popup balloon that says “Safe to Remove Hardware” does not come up in both my PC running Windows XP SP3. (BTW I still like to use them in spite of EoS).

I have tried modifying following registry keys, but they all have no effects:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\

Explorer\Advanced

EnableBalloonTips

FolderContentsInfoTip

StartButtonBalloonTip

ShowInfoTip

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Tips

Show

Changing the Policies of the drive to either:

-        Optimize for quick removal, or

-        Optimize for performance

Also has no effect.

As far as I can recall, this symptom takes place after a flash drive that has been plugged into my Windows 10 system, plugged into the Windows XP.

Any help that can bring back “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon to my Windows XP systems will be highly appreciated.

[jaclaz]

NOT a solution, only some reports of previous experience.

It happened to me a few times as well.

I was not able to find a "real reason" for it to disappear, in my case it was probably (but i have no real way to prove it) some software for low-level USB sticks formatting I installed.

There are (rather inconvenient) workarounds, like:

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/restore-missing-or-disappeared-safely-remove-hardware-icon/

But before anything else you should clear your USB history and related keys, in many cases this solves the issue (and it is anyway a good thing to do, as otherwise before or later you will experience slow USB mounting, etc.):

jaclaz
 

[Wijono]

Thank you so much jaclaz for your attempt to help.
I have cleared the Record of USB Plug in equipment, but then it does not bring back the “Safe to Remove Hardware”.
To my knowledge the sentence “Safe to Remove Hardware” is embedded in the hotplug.dll, I may suspect that something else not in the Registry (such as file or program) that may have prevented hotplug.dll to show the “Safe to Remove Hardware” popup balloon.
I am still hoping some one could shed some light to fix this problem.

[bluebolt]

On 12/12/2016 at 0:04 AM, Wijono said:

As far as I can recall, this symptom takes place after a flash drive that has been plugged into my Windows 10 system, plugged into the Windows XP.

Maybe you could test with a flash drive that has never been introduced to Windows 10.

[jaclaz]

Try using (temporarily) HotSwap!:

http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

That's what I did at the time and some time later (but I have no idea actually *how*) I managed to have "plain" "Remove Safely Hardware" working again.

jaclaz
 

[HarryTri]

On Δευτέρα, 12 Δεκεμβρίου 2016 at 8:04 AM, Wijono said:

Since recently that popup balloon that says “Safe to Remove Hardware” does not come up in both my PC running Windows XP SP3.

It is strange that it happened on both of your systems at about the same time. Maybe something that you installed or upgraded recently on both of them has to do with it?

[Mathwiz]

On Monday, December 12, 2016 at 3:19 AM, jaclaz said:

NOT a solution, only some reports of previous experience.

It happened to me a few times as well.

I was not able to find a "real reason" for it to disappear, in my case it was probably (but i have no real way to prove it) some software for low-level USB sticks formatting I installed.

There are (rather inconvenient) workarounds, like:

https://www.raymond.cc/blog/restore-missing-or-disappeared-safely-remove-hardware-icon/

But before anything else you should clear your USB history and related keys, in many cases this solves the issue (and it is anyway a good thing to do, as otherwise before or later you will experience slow USB mounting, etc.):

jaclaz

 

BTW, there should be an easier way to clear your USB history than booting into safe mode and deleting all USB devices one at a time. Anyone know of a simple program to do it?
 

[dencorso]

GhostBuster, maybe?

[bluebolt]

At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
start devmgmt.msc

Once you are in Device Manager, go to the View menu and choose Show Hidden Devices, which will show all the device drivers including things that aren’t currently installed in your computer.

[jaclaz]

15 hours ago, Mathwiz said:

BTW, there should be an easier way to clear your USB history than booting into safe mode and deleting all USB devices one at a time. Anyone know of a simple program to do it?

 

Sure , what do you think the Nirsoft USBDeview does?

Just in case:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

(like all Nirsoft thingies it is "plain", tiny, needs no install, let alone stupid .Net or any other framework)

But if you want a "single pass" tool, here is USBOblivion:
http://www.cherubicsoft.com/en/projects/usboblivion

https://sourceforge.net/projects/usboblivion/files/latest/download
 

jaclaz

 

[Mathwiz]

10 hours ago, dencorso said:

GhostBuster, maybe?

 

8 hours ago, bluebolt said:

At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

Type the following command at a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
start devmgmt.msc

Once you are in Device Manager, go to the View menu and choose Show Hidden Devices, which will show all the device drivers including things that aren’t currently installed in your computer.

 

2 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Sure , what do you think the Nirsoft USBDeview does?

Just in case:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

(like all Nirsoft thingies it is "plain", tiny, needs no install, let alone stupid .Net or any other framework)

But if you want a "single pass" tool, here is USBOblivion:
http://www.cherubicsoft.com/en/projects/usboblivion

https://sourceforge.net/projects/usboblivion/files/latest/download

 

jaclaz

 

All good suggestions (and all free, too!) Thanks.
 

[Wijono]

Thank you all for trying to help me fix the problem I face.
Basically I have tried everything mentioned, including clearing USB history, but failed to bring back “Safe to Remove Hardware”.
In response to bluebolt, I did the following:
- Restore the system from Ghost image that bring back “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon
- Tried flash drive that has never been introduced to Windows 10 (or better-mentioned USB 3.0 port under Windows 10). It works perfectly alright, event after trying many times, even after reboot, “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon still comes up normally
- Once I tried with a flash drive that has been plugged into Windows 10, the “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon disappeared, even for the flash drive that has never been introduced to Windows 10.

As I mentioned earlier, that a file or a program might have prevented hotplug.dll from showing Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon. I recall that Panda Free Antivirus has USB Protection, I tried to disable the USB Protection, no change. But when I stop Panda Free Antivirus, voila…. “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon come back! What a good luck!

Now I uninstalled Panda Free Antivirus, and the “Safe to Remove Hardware” balloon works normally. But the connection with Windows 10 is still puzzling.