Windows 10: Safely Remove Hardware option is slowly degrading

A couple weeks ago I noticed the internally connected SATA Hot-Swap bays were no longer listing in the "Safely Remove Hardware" tree, external USB connected drives remained listed when connected. Two days ago thumb drives began not to be listed and, now today, powered USB disk drives are not listed. Oddly enough, the one USB drive playing by the rules is a Seagate Backup Plus.

The ASUS BIOS is set to AHCI and Hot-Swap is enabled per SATA ports. I actually had inadvertently enabled Hot-Swap for all drives when I initially built this comp a couple years ago. Since then all internal SATA drives had populated the "Safely Remove Hardware" tree but since it wasn't a bother I never took the minute required to disable them in bios. Earlier today I updated BIOS and Chipset drivers. In addition I toggled enable/disable of Hot-Swap-ability in BIOS along with uninstalling device drivers for the associated SATA bus then restarted the comp. Unfortunately none of this has proven effective.

Would really appreciate if someone could help me retrieve the ability to Hot-Swap.

:)

 

Safely Remove Hardware tool

Thank you for the update, Murray. Since you mentioned that you've already tried running the rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll command to no avail, we suggest that you create a shortcut or even a batch file using the same command. Just run
the shortcut or batch file and see if the Safely Remove Hardware dialog window will appear. To create a shortcut, follow these steps:

• Right-click on the desktop and click on New > Shortcut.
• In the Type the location of the item box, type in, or copy and paste the following command:
  • rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
• Click Next and then give it a name like Safely Remove Hardware, and then click on
  Finish.

Keep us in the loop.

 

Safely Remove Hardware icon missing

Hi
In the last few days the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon has gone missing from my Taskbar. Also, if I right-click on the USB stick or USB hard drive in 'This Computer' the Eject option is missing.
In PC Settings/Personalisation/Taskbar/Notification area/Select which icons appear on the taskbar I have 'Always show all icons in the notification area' switched on & all items in the list are in the 'on' state including 'Windows Explorer (Safely Remove Hardware & Eject Media).
Any suggestions?

 

Safely Remove Hardware - Windows 10

Hi Grant,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

I understand that you have concern about the how to safely removal of external device from Windows 10. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

I suggest you to provide you valuable suggestion in the feedback app.

1. Click on Search bar.

2. Type "Windows Feedback" without the quotes in the search bar and click on it.

3. Then provide your suggestion.

We can also removely safely the external pen drives or external hard drive through below steps.

1. Open File Explorer.

2. It will show the list of Drives available on the computer, then right click on the external drive which you want to remove safely.

3. The click on Eject option from the list.

Let us know if you need any further assistance on Windows related issues and we will be glad to help.