Windows 10: Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media

Over the last several days, I have been installing and grooming Windows 10 and other programs on my PC. Suddenly and for no apparent reason the taskbar icon "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" disappeared. I typically have an external harddrive plugged in to a rear USB port, a wireless mouse transmitter plugged into a front USB and occasionally a thumb drive in one of the monitor USB ports.


I read quite a bit on this issue. All the stuff about using the command line to safely remove but that just led to some nonsense warning about the device not being able to be removed. Yes it is, I just pulled it out.


After several hours of frustration, I stumbled on a tip about simply opening the task manager, finding File Explorer and restarting. Viola, the icon reappeared and seemed to work fine. I would have thought that the many sequences of restarting (the PC) trying to resolve this issue including complete shut downs and restarts would have started the File Explorer.


Then, I did restart and again the icon is missing. Repeat the steps to start it and it starts, Restart the PC and it is gone.

Anyone have a idea as to why this occurs and a permanent fix?

:)

 

Missing Eject in "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" List

I use to be able to eject my USB drive via "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" with list as below:

- Open Devices and Printers
- Eject Data Traveler 111
- USB Drive (D
- Eject My Passport Ultra
- My Passport (E

However recently the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" list seems corrupted and shows:

- Open Devices and Printers
- USB Drive (D

- My Passport (E

with { - USB Drive (D } and { - My Passport (E } are grayed out.

Currently the only way for me is go to file explorer and right click the removable drive and click Eject.

Please help!

 

Missing Eject in "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" List

Hi Tze Lin Wong,

The configuration to this can be found under settings. To enable this feature follow these steps:

1. Right-click the taskbar and select Taskbar settings.
   
2. Under Notification Area, choose
   Select which icons appear on the taskbar.
3. Scroll to Windows Explorer: Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media
   and turn it on.

If this doesn't work, I suggest that you check with your USB drive manufacturer for new drivers or other updates.

All the best.

 

Hiding devices from Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media list

In my Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media list both my internal SSD and storage drive are listed. I want to be able to hide/remove these drives from the list. After a lot of searching all I could find was a registry trick for Win7 which no longer applies
in Win10. All the other suggestions have been to shut off hot swapping but that is something I use. This is a work machine that I am often connecting and disconnecting drives from. It seems like it should be a simple thing to mark certain devices to not be
listed. What can I do?