Safely Remove Hardware icon

[scott14]

Now I've got a real nice new nLite installation, except for 1 thing that I don't know how to fix:

Normally your "Safely Remove Hardware" tray icon turns on when you plug in a USB device.

The problem is, in my new Winlite installation, the "Safely Remove Hardware" tray icon stays on 100% of the time, and the hardware which it shows are 2 of my 3 HARD DRIVES!

Does anybody have ideas on how to disassociate my HDDs from the Windows XP "Safely Remove Hardware" feature?

4 people use this desktop computer, with lots of thumb drive connections coming and going all the time, so I fear someone will mistakenly shut off a HDD when using "Safely Remove Hardware" to remove their USB flash drive.

Your thoughts / suggestions on how to fix this will be appreciated.

It'd be much better to still have the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature remain useable for the thumb drives, instead of totally disabling it (which I don't know how to do anyway).

Thank you.

Edited May 30, 2007 by scott14

[antinouskalisto]

I am having this very same problem. Using Gigabyte GA-M61PM-S2 REV2.0 (based on NV MCP61), Windows XP Pro SP2 x86 shows my fixed hard disks as removable devices, they are in a software array (raid1) using the NVIDIA/MediaShield raid utility at boot time. It's like Windows sees straight through the array, both disks are available for "Safely Remove Hardware" yet they show as one PHYSICAL disk in Disk Managment and only one drive is in My Computer. It's definitely array'd.

This is fine with me, I can easily ignore it and just not remove the hard disks via the menu.

The good news is, no matter how I try to coax it. Windows will NOT let me remove either hard disk. I get the same message you would get using a USB drive and trying to remove it.

Yeah it is somewhat annoying the hard disks show up in the menu/icon, but it's no danger if that's what you're worried about.

Cheers.

[scott14]

antinouskalisto,

Thank you for your comments.

Well at least it's good to hear that I'm not the only person with this problem.

My HDDs are not in raid array. One of the 3 is an "Acronis secure zone" so Windoes can't see it. I think that's why only 2 of my 3 HDDs show up as removable devices in the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

The good news is, no matter how I try to coax it. Windows will NOT let me remove either hard disk.

THat's also good news. I've been woried that other people using this computer would accidentally "remove" the hard drives when they took out their thumb drives. From what you say I won't worry any more.

[Philipz]

Exact same problem I am now having. It doesn't look any solution is available at this time...

[Vengaboy]

can u post a screenshot of your "disk management"? (http://www.microsoft.com/germany/technet/prodtechnol/images/winxppro/f12zs02_big.jpg)

are the devices set up as "basic" or "dynamic" hdd?