Thread: Safely Remove Hardware icon is not displayed

I have been using Microsoft Windows XP for sometime now and back-up my data on a flash drive. Lately. on inserting the flash drive, i do not see the notification button on my taskbar. This makes it impossible for me to unplug my device safely. I have been told that it is not a good practice to directly unplug a USB device from the computer and hence I do not know what to do now.

SOLUTION: This is a common problem among most flash drive users. However, there are many solutions to this problem. The taskbar can be set to hide inactive icons. Check
to see if your device is concealed among the hidden icons. You can do so by clicking on the arrow near the clock that can be found on the bottom, right corner of the screen.
If the icon is there then you need to unhide it to avoid future scares of this nature. To do this,

o Right-click on the taskbar and click Properties".

o Uncheck the "Hide inactive icons" check box.
o Click "OK".

If the icon isn't to be found, even after clicking on the arrow then you can invoke the dialog box by clicking on "Start I Run". Enter the following line of text "RUNDLL32 SHELL32
DLL.Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll" and hit the [Enter] key. The dialog box will open on your screen. Though this will serve your purpose, it isn't a permanent solution. It is better
to have the icon pop up every time rather than type in this line of text in the command prompt each time. Here's how to enforce its presence:

o Click "Start I Control Panel".

o Double-click on "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties".

o Click "Customize".

o Select "Always Show" from the drop down list that corresponds to "Safely Remove Hardware".

o Click "OK".

The "Safely Remove Hardware" icon will now be displayed permanently on the taskbar. The problem of the missing icon is often solved by a simple reboot of the computer. However, it is best to follow these steps rather than unplug your device directly and risk data loss and corruption of the device altogether.