How To Reinstall Safely Remove Hardware Icon Disappeared

Restore Safely Remove Hardware Icon
Missing Safely Remove Devices Icon
Safely Remove Icon Is Missing
How To Reinstall Safely Remove Hardware Icon Disappeared In Windows 10

Solution 3

Here’s another possible way on how you can to restore Safely Remove Hardware icon back to tray bar. Some people have had success with it restoring their icon, so it might work for you…

1. Open My Computer.

So I did a right click on the Task Bar, which brought up the 'TaskBar and Start Menu Properties' panel, clicked on customize at the bottom right and set the bahavior of 'Safely Remove Hardware' to: 'Always Show'. After running BootVis (to try and improve boot performance) the Safely Remove Hardware icon no longer appears in the system tray. I've tried running Check Disk, System File Checker, spyware apps, etc etc.

2. Right click on the USB flash drive and click Properties.

3. Click on the Hardware tab and select the removable drive from the list

4. Click the Properties button

5. Click on the Policies tab

6. Change the option from “Optimize for quick removal” to “Optimize for performance” and press OK. You can change it back to Optimize for quick removal once you know whether the Safely Remove Hardware icon has been restored or not.

Solution 4

If you’re having trouble and using the command above didn’t work, or don’t want to create a shortcut or batch file, here’s a simple and straight forward free tool which you can use to quickly and safely remove USB devices in Windows. USB Disk Ejector is able to eject any USB device.

In our opinion, USB Disk Ejector is miles better than Windows itself at handling removable devices, so we highly recommended that you at least have a look at it as a complete replacement for the Windows Safely Remove feature. You can find more information about it in our USB Disk Ejector article. There’s nothing to loose really as the program is completely portable so you don’t even have to install it to try it out.

To stop and safely remove a USB device using USB Disk Ejector, just double click or press enter for the device displayed in the user interface. We love USB Disk Ejector because it’s free, small, portable and easy to use as well as being able to handle hardware such as card readers far better than Windows can. There’s also the ability to eject specific drives using keyboard shortcuts.

Download USB Disk Ejector

Final Note: If you find that none of the above solutions works, you may want to perform a Windows repair install to fix the problem. Another manual way of safely ejecting the removable storage disk such as USB flash drive to prevent any data corruption is to open Windows Explorer by pressing Win+R, right click on the drive letter and select Eject from the context menu. This will ensure that the drive can be safely unplugged from the USB port.

‹ Previous12 View All

You might also like:

Hide or Remove “Safely Remove Hardware” Tray Icon5 Free Tools To Eject USB Removable DevicesPower Off USB Port when Safely Removed USB Device in Windows 75 Ways to Remount Ejected or Safely Removed USB Device Without Unplug and ReinsertSolutions to CD/DVD Drive Letter Missing from My Computer

Nomen Nescio6 months ago

none of these work due to access restrictions or because restarting loads the OS and settings from a template. c:>goto Square1

Every now and then the icon disappears from the tray and when it does I have always been hesitant to remove the USB stick, fearing files might get corrupted. So I have had to resort to restarting my computer. Annoying and inconvenient.

I used your solution 2. It works fine and I can safely remove the memory stick and it also restores the icon to the tray. I now have the shortcut on my desktop so it will be quickly available any time the problem occurs in the future.

Many thanks for a quick and easy fix.

Paul S1 year ago

Method No.3 did the trick for me! Many thanks indeed!!

I have a public computer at my local library that the idiot monkeys at the county IT department have removed the Safely Remove button from the Taskbar and of course have all the Control Panel, etc. settings administratively locked, so none of this works, they either fail because of restrictions or in the case of downloaded 3rd-party programs, don’t do anything, at least not without restarting, which wipes everything the patron has done. I already spend about 7 minutes making these things usable. It used to be there, but of course they removed it because, ya know, that would be too usable and convenient.

Of course I can tell the librarians who can do nothing about it except tell the IT people about it which again are idiot-monkey county employees who can set up as in install sh–, but have no idea WTF they’re doing as far as the end user is concerned. They even tell the librarians who come to them with a problem that they’ve personally observed, ‘no, it doesn’t do that.’ Even so, that would naturally involve several weeks or months before being reimplemented.

Yes, I know I can go to the drive letter in Windows Explorer and select Eject **which Microsoft has so wisely put right next to Format,** because some of the senior citizens who also use library computers have such fine eyesight and motor control, but I think I’ll just start yanking drives out until they’re corrupted and then suing the county for $100K; the TOS you have to agree to when you start a session makes no mention of that sort of thing, just what content is appropriate online or from your own files.

Charity1 year ago

Dear Raymond,
You are a lifesaver! I have spent all day searching for a fix for the missing eject safely icon. I started with my system and then went on the internet. I have read and tried over 50 solutions including on a Microsoft forum. Nothing worked. I finally came to your website and in a few minutes my problem was solved. Words can not convey my gratitude but I had to let you know how grateful I am. GOD bless you and yours.
Charity

Thanks.
Your registry fix was the best fix in my case.
It took a while searching through other websites ineffective, basic fixes until I found yours.

Ben Ponderin2 years ago

Thanks a million. the second option was skookum!

My little problem with Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media under Windows 10 does not seem to be in the article or the comments. I have a USB external, backup drive. All the family use USB Flash Drives. Frequently, the Backup Drive gets ‘Unplugged’ by mistake. Is there a way that I can hide the Backup Drive from the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media list?

HAL9000 Author2 years ago

I’m not sure there’s a simple way to remove a single entry from Safely Remove Hardware while allowing it to function.

There is a way I can think of but it involves using the freeware USB Disk Ejector and a method to hide the Safely Remove Hardware icon. Basically you tell USB Disk Ejector to hide card readers and then configure your backup drive as a card reader, then hide the Safely Remove icon. We have an article on how to hide the icon in Suggested Reading to the right. >>>

It’s not perfect but will do what you want.

I used a temporary file cleaner and after that I don’t see the option to “safely remove hardware”, although I can click on the icon.
I just typed “rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll”. Clicked on the portable HDD and Windows says the USB device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged. :-O

Nannie van Dam3 years ago

Windows 10 and eject icon

I also thought the icon had disappeared.
I have a hub and an extension cord between my usb stick and the lapop (tosty bar) When I use the hub for mouse headset etc. I don’t see the eject Icon. The moment I insert a USB stick in the hub the Icon reappears. It must have something to do with version or .. … voltage electricity (headset and mouse are brand new and Logitech). USB stick is a scandisk and a fe years old.

I hope this will help you to analyse the problem

kind regards

Surely it ought to be possible to correct a corrupted or missing registry entry to restore a missing ‘safely remove hardware’ icon. Or maybe not, because my icon disappeared after updating my motherboard chipset INF files.

Mickey4 years ago

Thank you Raymond. Typing
rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
into windows 10 ask me anything bar also works.
Thanks for the help


Well, after my own solution of opening Explorer on Windows XP and choosing “Eject”,
I decided to look for someone smarter than me, in order to restore that Hardware Symbol.
Finally got it!
Thank you very much.

W.M.4 years ago

Thank you!

I tried everry which way to get my eject safely icon back on the taskbar but everything failed. So I tried your solution on making a shortcut on the desktop and this worked like a charm. Many many thanks.

Waleed4 years ago

I have usb drive… when i plug it.. it show green icon in the task bar… but it does not show the removeable drive…what should i do with it? i have important data inside it :(

Dude … Just back up your data. Don’t put yourself in that kind of risky situation in the first place. If you needed to unplug the drive, and you didn’t want to lose your files, then at that moment, copy your most important, if not all of the files, to the computer you have it plugged into. Therefore avoided the risk. Pretty simple. … Ultimately, electrical devices fail. Guaranteed! … So accommodate for the loss/risks! :)

Prafulla4 years ago

You saved the day !! I spent hours on this one and your solution took 2 minutes. Thanks

Thanks so much!! Excellent solution! I am so grateful! Worked instantly!

Bill Gardner5 years ago

Excellent. Type 3 did it for me, both system tray & context menu.
Many thanks.

“this often has the side effect of also restoring the icon back to the tray.” in my case it did, but the moment I tried to click it, it dissapeared again… any thoughts? I really need this icon back.

rose5 years ago

thanks so much i tried solution 3 option on how to restore my safely remove hardware icon and it worked great i got it back instantly on my taskbar and the notification taskbar list

Awesome! Solution 2 worked for me! :~

Tim Collins6 years ago

Where do I go for solution 1 on Windows Vista?

Restore Safely Remove Hardware Icon

Right click on the taskbar -> Properties -> Notification Area tab -> Customize.

Terry6 years ago

I found all of your explanations on how to remove my kindle from my PC very readable. However, none of them worked at all; I am unable to bring up the safely remove hardware icon with any of them.

I got so close with one of them only to be thwarted by this message ‘the kindle internal storage USB device is not removable and cannot be ejected or unplugged.

I am perplexed!

The RUN command worked like a charm. My Safely Remove Hardware icon appeared immediately. I can’t thank you enough for your help! You’re the BEST!!!

Nickle Plate7 years ago

Creating desktop shortcut provided most excellent solution. Many thanks.

thank you master!! that did it!

dl6047 years ago

Your “free and helpful advise” really did help me and after following the instructions my icon was returned to where it needed to be. I have never seen the point in hiding icons so it was just lost and I had to keep going into My Computer to find the eject button on the appropriate place.
Thank you so much for the logical steps to follow.

Thre rundll dialog worked perfectly for me to restore my “safely remove hardware” icon. Thank you so much.

Ash7 years ago

very helpful. thanks a lot!

Thanks a million, the command is really clever :)

Belen9 years ago

I tried it and it works! Thanks!

thanks a lot!!:)

D9 years ago

Thank you so much! this is incredibly useful.

thank you so much dude, it’s really a help.. i was able to restore my safely remove icon. thanks again..

Amaresh9 years ago

Thanks Raymond!

Thanks a million Raymond…. The info was very helpful :)

Rebecca9 years ago

Cheers Raymond! The “Run” command helps.

excellent – thank you.

belker9 years ago

thanks-worked great, got my icon back

Thanks for the useful tip…………….

florin9 years ago

thanks very much! the command helped me a lot, by bringing back the Safely Remove Icon on the taskbar

Thanks! the “rundll32…” command worked beautifully for me on Windows XP Professional SP3

Paul Vee10 years ago

What worked for me was to follow your steps in your 2nd example and click on the “safely remove hardware” link, then remove the hardware. The taskbar link has returned. Couldn’t have done it without your excellent instructions!

Thank U Raymond thank you So Much !!!!

Ed K.10 years ago

you are awesome. I had no “safely remove hardware” icon at the bottom, and I googled “safely remove hardware missing. ” Copy, paste the command like you said to Start, Run, clicked ok and the icon is restored. God bless you and your family.

Thanks for the RUN command tip. It worked like a charm. I saved the RUN command line in a CMD file on the desktop and all I have to do if the icon disappears again, is to double click die CMD file.

Dave10 years ago

Very helpful – thanks for the tips.

this was extremely helpful – many thanks!

Tony10 years ago

Thanks Raymond, the run cmd worked a treat ! Main thing is, I didn’t have to remove my ipod unsafely. Thanks a million mate !
Cheers,
Tony

Thanks that was so easy.

Richard10 years ago

Hi Raymond, thanks for the help on ‘safely remove hardware icon missing’. I have tried all sorts of methods suggested by so many – but yours is the only one that I found worked. I now have in ‘my favourites’ bookmarks

Thanks, optimizing performance brought the remove safely icon back.

rafael barata11 years ago

better than microsoft support
thanks

“rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll” command worked on WinXP.

Thanks Raymond =)

Morgan11 years ago

Hey thanks for this. An easy way to implement your advice I discovered was to right click on desktop > create new shortcut > paste “rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll” (without the quotes) in the filepath > then give it a useful name e.g “Safely Remove Hardware”.

This worked for me on XP and now I can put that shortcut on my quicklaunch so it will never be an issue again.

Thanks, Worked like a charm.

Aldi11 years ago

“rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll”
It works on my Win2K

Thank you Raymond

Thanks for the useful tip! Just wanted to let you know it worked for me.

Missing Safely Remove Devices Icon

Michael12 years ago

Safely Remove Icon Is Missing

Whooo hoooo!!!! Thanks Ray man!!
No more USB troubles!!!for now….

great tool and tips. I always had this problem on my laptop. Now i don’t have to worry about corrupting the files on my usb drive any more

Whylucky

How To Reinstall Safely Remove Hardware Icon Disappeared

You might also like:

Restore Safely Remove Hardware Icon

Missing Safely Remove Devices Icon

Safely Remove Icon Is Missing

How To Reinstall Safely Remove Hardware Icon Disappeared In Windows 10

Leave a Reply