harddrives are removable?

[Stern]

Hi,

I have a 120GB, a 400GB, and a 500GB harddrive. I've been using the 400GB and 500GB harddrives for storage, and the 120GB one for installed programs and for windows. Now I had some hardware driver trouble so I formatted the 120GB one and reinstalled windows on it, nice clean install. But for some reason I now have a little icon in the taskbar saying I can safely remove these harddrives if I want to. I usually only get this when I plug in my portable HDD, but now (120GB)C: (400GB)F: and (500GB)G: are all showing as removable drives.

They're all 3.5" internal SATA drives, and I have no idea why this is now showing otherwise.
My OS is Windows XP Pro SP2 with all updates etc. Motherboard is A8N32 Deluxe.

This isn't really a problem, it just kind of bothers me that its different.

Any help appreciated!

Thanks,
Stern

 

[pontifex]

I think SATA drives are hot swappable and that could be why. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

However, I'm not sure why it would show up all of a sudden like that.

 

[OdiN]

Yeah it's due to SATA that can be hotswapped. It's kinda annoying I think. I hate extra systray icons.

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Yeah it's due to SATA that can be hotswapped. It's kinda annoying I think. I hate extra systray icons.

I'm thinking about changing SATA drivers so that I don't have to worry about it. I'm always afraid I'm going to click the wrong item when removing a thumb drive. Windows doesn't like the drive it is on being removed.

 

[Stern]

What I find strange is that this has never come up before, I didn't change any hardware between formatting.

 

[MarcVenice]

I've got the same thing, with my SATA HD. What happens when you do 'safely' remove the HD that windows is currently running on ?

 

[Stern]

Well it generally tells you it can't remove that drive right now, understandably. Is there any way to stop drives being hot-swappable? i.e. switching off the feature, somehow?

 

[Old Hippie]

Is there any way to stop drives being hot-swappable? i.e. switching off the feature, somehow?

You could probably load some older drivers. AFAIK, there's no way to turn it off. Just hide it with the rest of 'um.

 

[NoelS]

Stern,

I've had that on all of my systems since I started using SATA drives. Just ignore it and it won't bother you.

One thing, when you add a flash drive or similar through your USB ports (maybe an external USB HDD enclosure) they will be added to that icon, so when you go to remove them "safely'" you'll need to make sure you remove the correct item. That said, I've never had a problem that way either.

Noel

 

[geokilla]

NVIDIA motherboard drivers causes this problem. When you're installing motherboard drivers, don't install the NVIDIA IDE SW Drivers. Just use the regular Windows drivers and you won't encounter the Safely Remove Hardware for your hard drive.

You can also go on google and search about this problem. I found a solution to this problem before, but I think it required some Registry editing.

SATA drivers are hot-swappable, but Windows won't let you remove the hard drive since you're accessing the hard drive.

 

[Stern]

thanks for all your replies, like OdiN I hate having extra systray icons, but it's no big deal

Happy 2008