How to enable "Safely Remove Hardware" icon?

[Goi]

For some reason my Win XP taskbar doesn't have this icon, and so when I plug in my external drives, it doesn't show it, nor can I stop the drive before unplugging. Not that this is much of a problem since I have write caching disabled anyway, so I should be able to just unplug it right? However, I'm still wondering why the icon's gone, and how can I re-enable it?

 

[InlineFive]

That icon only appears if write caching is enabled on the device.

 

[Aberforth]

Right click on the system tray> Customize Notifications and then you can figure things out.

Edit: you can also try this http://www.safelyremove.com/ :laugh:

 

[Goi]

InlineFive, really? But isn't write caching disabled by default? I still see the USB icon on my friend's systems. Unless they've manually enabled write caching, why would it appear then?

Aberforth, I tried customize notifications and enabled "Always Show" for the icon but it still doesn't show up.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: InlineFive
That icon only appears if write caching is enabled on the device.

Not really - it is usually always there as long as any peripheral device, USB, Firewire, SCSI, etc., is attached.

I have at present, 4 devices showing and write caching is not enabled on any of them.

 

[Goi]

So how do I get mine back? Mine isn't showing at all.

 

[corkyg]

This is odd - there have been several threads of guys asking how to get rid of that icon - but no one has yet asked to have it restored from some unknown absence.

Did you have it at some time previously? CIf so, consider a system restore to that date ot time. It happens because of a Registry entry as near as I understand it.