Solved: How to remove internal devices from showing in safely remove hardware list?

[TJCS]

Anyone know how to disable the video controller from showing up in the Windows 7 safely remove hardware list? It shows up whenever I enable hotplugging function in AHCI-mode. I have a PCI-E video card.

Here is a pic to show you what I mean:

Is there a registry or system setting somewhere that will remove it from the safely remove hardware list? Any help to resolve this is appreciated.

 

[RebateMonger]

Sorry, but there's something vaguely hilarious about that idea.

 

[TJCS]

Sorry, but there's something vague hilarious about that idea.

How come man, I have never encountered a situation where I needed to eject my video card. Or do you mean the ejecting video card part... that I have done once or twice already -_-

 

[Blazer]

never seen that before, its funny that win7 sees a vga controller as hot plug and play, go into the bios and make sure your first choice for video is the pci device and disable onboard video.

 

[TJCS]

All onboard function that I don't used is already disabled (including video). For the graphic adapter do you mean go in bios and change the primary graphics adapter from PCIe to PCI? Wouldn't that cause the system to search for PCI video card when booting?

 

[RebateMonger]

What's the PC or motherboard and what's the video card?

 

[TJCS]

I have two systems that does this:

1. Asrock x58 Extreme + EVGA 275 GTX
2. Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 + PNY 7950GT

 

[TJCS]

[FONT=&quot]I really don't see anything wrong, but here are my relevant settings in bios:
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Chipset Settings[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Primary Graphics Adapter..........[PCI Express][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Onboard HD Audio..................... [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Front Panel.................................. [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Onboard Lan................................ [Enabled][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Intelligent Energy Saver............. [Disabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]CIR10 Field 1.............................. [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PCIE Max Payload Size.............. [128B][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Intel VT-d..................................... [Disabled][/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]IDE Configuration[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]SATAII Configuration................. [Enhanced][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Configure SATAII as................... [AHCI][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Hot Plug....................................... [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] SATA Link Power Management [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Onboard IDE and 1394............... [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Onboard eSATAII........................ [Enabled][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] eSATAII Operation Mode........... [AHCI][/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]PCIPnP Configuration (All Default)[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]PCI Latency Timer.......... [32][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]PCI IDE BusMaster......... [Enabled][/FONT]

 

[Blazer]

have you tried disabling Hot Plug and Play ?

have a look in power management, maybe something there.

since its happening with 2 boards from Asrock could it be a bios issue they may be having ?

 

[TJCS]

I have been running my x58 board with Hot Plug disabled, and the eject video controller item is no longer there. However, if hotplug is disabled, I have to do a manual PC restart every time to get my eSATA external drive detected.

I had a looked in power management and gpedit settings, but didn't find anything related to this issue. Thanks for the input, I will post if I find something.

 

[TJCS]

My apologies, time has tainted my memory in regard to my x58 board. The video controller actually doesn't show up in my x58 motherboard; instead it's the main OS drive and dvd-rw drive.

Here is a pic:

Had some time to research online about modifying the safe removal policy, but didn't get anywhere. I think when you enable Hot-Plug in AHCI-mode it will turn all devices connected to your SATA ports to hot swappable USB-like devices. This only seems to happen on some setups because many others do not have this problem.

 

[RebateMonger]

I couldn't find an single reference to the video card eject problem on Google. I could see it if you were using a USB video adapter.

 

[TJCS]

I have doubled checked my bios settings, device manager, made sure available inf/storage drivers are properly installed. I think that it may be a chipset/storage controller issue between Asrock 4CoreDual-SATA2 and Windows 7. It didn't show the video controller when it was on Xp.

For my x58 system, I may look into utilities similar to Safely Remove if ejecting devices become troublesome.

Thank you for going out of your way to help me find a solution.

 

[RebateMonger]

Thank you for going out of your way to help me find a solution.

It's a pretty strange problem. You'd think that SOMEBODY would have noted it before. Probably because of your particular combination of ASRock, Hotplugging, and maybe the video card or drivers.

I imagine somebody else will encounter this problem eventually and it'll get fixed.

Truthfully, I don't often use "Safely Remove" anyway. None of my servers, where I do a lot of SATA hotswapping with backup disks, even HAVE the option. And I wouldn't use it anyway, since my clients don't log into their servers to swap the backup disks.

 

[TJCS]

RebateMonggeerrrrrrrrr I found a solution online!!!

The solution provided below is credited to [FONT=&quot]Guillaume at Parallel Interface. This method will work for other permanent devices in your system that you do not want listed in your Remove Hardware Safely list.

[/FONT] How it’s done:

• Must Login as Administrator
• Find Device DWORD Value in Regedit
• Create command line in Schedule Task as SYSTEM
• Works for various system devices connected, and modification is easily reversible by simply deleting the Schedule Task created

Details:

1. Locate Your Device(s) in Regedit:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\

· This will bring up a list of available hardware connections. For SATA DVD-rom drives, and hard drives look under IDE. For Video Cards look in PCI.

2. Once you find your device, expand it and click on the first key folder under it (looks something like 4&15e311de&0&0.1.0).
· The Capability value in this key folder should be greater than 0.
· Take a note of the Capability number (my dvd-rom drive is set at 6)

3. Right-click the key folder and select Copy Key Name.

4. Open Task Scheduler > Create Task > and set the following parameters:

· Change User or Group (Under Security Options) and set it to SYSTEM
· Configure for: Chose your platform
· Triggers Tab > New > Begin the Task > At Startup
· Actions Tab > New
- Program/script: reg.exe
- Add arguments: add "paste your copied key name here" /v Capabilities /t REG_DWORD /d Your Capability Number minus 4 here /f

Example: add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\CdRomOptiarc_DVD_RW_AD-7240S_________________1.01____\4&15e311de&0&0.1.0" /v Capabilities /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

5. Right-click the new Scheduled Task and click Run. You should see the results immediately. Logoff/Logon and the safely remove your hardware icon will be gone if there are no removable devices connected.

·To undo the changes you made above, simply remove it from your schedule task and reboot. Without the Schedule Task, the system will automatically restore the registry values back to their original after a reboot.

I have tested everything I wrote above, and it is working great. Enjoy!

 

[TJCS]

I was able to remove the video controller, internal SATA OS drive, and DVDRW drive from the safely remove hardware list.

I really think the video controller issue is a driver or hardware issue. I had a vista notebook that displayed the video controller in the safely remove list, but it disappeared after I updated all the hardware drivers and windows update. No worries about clicking it by accident now, cheers!

 

[Blazer]

thanks for posting what you found, its something i havnt come accross ever.

 

[TJCS]

thanks for posting what you found, its something i havnt come accross ever.

Np, thanks to you too for helping out. I think this issue only happens to people who have hot-plug enabled devices and motherboards. I got into the habit of using safely remove, and it has saved me quite a few times during transfers.

 

[IlPapu]

TJCS, I have the same problem you mentioned above (internal hard drives showing up in safely remove hardware icon). I have tried your solution and the solution of modifying the registry to tell windows that it is an internal device, but neither work. Any hints or ideas? Thanks IlPapu