Safely remove hardware icon

Why would an icon "Safely remove hardware" suddenly appear on the tray? I
have no intention of removing any hardware.
Has the computer suddenly decided I ought to remove something?

"Add hardware" is on the control panel, but I can't see "Remove hardware".

I leave all that to a computer man, anyway.

 

You have probably plugged in a USB device, camera usb drive etc?

 

Hi Geo,

Just to amplify what Malcolm has said - you most likely have plugged
in a USB device of some sort. There is a plethora of such devices -
such as a digital camera, usb drive, mouse, keyboard, scanner etc.
When you plugged this device in then Windows detected the device and
displayed the 'safely remove hardware' icon.

USB devices are designed to be 'hot-swappable' - which means you can
plug them in and unplug them at any time without rebooting. When you
plug something in Windows XP usually detects the new device
automatically, however it is much harder to automatically detect that
a device has been unplugged. The 'safely remove hardware' icon
provides a way for you to tell Windows that you are about to unplug
the device. Double-click the icon (it is always safe to do this) and
you will see a list of devices (probably only 1 but there can be
more). You can simply click on 'close' or 'properties' if you wish -
nothing will have been done ('properties' will cause a list of the
device properties) - or you can select a device and click on 'stop'.
Windows will now 'turn off' the device and once this has been done you
can physically unplug it.

If the (or all) the USB device(s) are to be permanently plugged in
then simply ignore this icon.

I hope this helps.

Crash.

 

Always go through the proper removal protocol when removing external
memory cards, memory sticks, cameras, external hard drives etc. This
applies to Windows, Linux or any other operating system. This ensures
any buffers are flushed, files are completely written and 'FAT's' and
directory data up updated (Or equivalents such as inodes on other file
system types). Otherwise you risk screwing up the file ystem and
losing data, especially with any file you have 'open' or writing.

It would not be too silly if there was a 'lock' on USB ports similar
to the 'lock' on CD drives.

 

>,
says...

What lock on CD drives?

It would piss a lot of folk off if there was some kind of mechanical
lock on USB attached devices...

Case in point: most of my clients now backup to USB removable drives
(tape backups are history and expensive). Most have no access to the
server console - so they just pull cable out of the drive, and put the
next drive in (I educate them to ensuring the delay the swap for at
least ten seconds).

I've yet to see any problem - the drives are never 'stopped' via the
safely remove hardware method (as said they have no access to the
console).

I do the same thing on my Server - there's no way I'm going to bother
with turning the monitor on, or remoting on, and using the 'safely
remove hardware' method. Waste of my time.

 

On Linux, you can mount the drive sync, use a journalling filesystem ...
what's the problem?

 

You can use ntfs and no write cache on windows too, but the problem is
that no hardware devices will do anything but fat so your stuck with that.

What would be better is if there was an eject button/light on the plug
of the usb device so you could press it and it would do a force close of
all files on the device and unmount it then light up to let you know you
can unplug it.

 

Really? I wasn't aware that any of the flash drives actually cared what
filesystem you used on them.

 

You will notice that you cannot open the CD drive when burning a CD.
While under Windows you can always release a CD, Linux often 'locks'
the drawer while the CD is 'mounted'. You need to un-mount or 'eject'
the CD to physically remove it.

Be as it may, it would be there to protect people from their own
idiocy.

OK if that works then it is OK, but one woud hope that people do
random checks on the back-ups to ensure that the data is actually
there and readable. Telecom has got into bad strife twice when
backups of telephone exchange databases failed to restore. Heads
rolled (including a second level manager) in one of these instances.

See above.

 

If you use a memory stick out of a blister pack, it is formatted in
FAT and hence is immediately usable under Windows or Linux, There is
no reason why it cannot be re-formatted to ext3, NTFS etc or even
mixed partitions. The only worry with messing around in this way is
if it compromises any mechanisms to spread writes evenly across the
memory, since there is a finite limit to the number of writes before
the memory wears out. I admit total ignorance in this area.

 

What good is a backup that isn't tested? Mine are routinely tested,
including image restores (entire boot drives).

 

Never put anything on a FAT or FAT32 drive that you care about.

 

I believe by 'hardware device' he means a device which uses the storage
itself e.g. music player or camera. Lowest common denominator and all
that, so very few of these can cope with anything other than FAT16 or
FAT32.

 

Thank you everyone, most of your advice is over my head, but I'll save all
your posts for future reference.

I have found out what happened. The icon went off when I switched off the
printer, so it must have been a warning for that. I wonder why I haven't
seen it before. Perhaps the time the printer is left on triggers it?

But why can't it just say "Turn off the printer" instead of going on about
removing hardware and scaring people?

Everybody here is so helpful, it is much appreciated. Dumb, aren't I?

Geopelia

 

How would the use of a more advanced filesystem possibly make any difference
to such a mechanism?

 

Dave Doe wrote

They're probably set for quick removal.

To check this:
Double click the safely remove hardware icon.
Select the device.
Click Properties.
Select the Policies Tab

Select Optimise for quick removal:
This disables Disk Caching on the disk and in Windows for the drive and
allows disconnection without using the Safely remove hardware option.
(I have 5 USB hard drives setup like this and have never had any problems
with them)

[or]
Select Optimise for Performance:
This enables Disk Caching and requires using the Safely remove Hardware
option BEFORE physically disconnecting the drive.

 

Shouldn't have been that. The "safety" aspect is specifically for devices
where you can suffer data loss if they're not properly cleaned up by the OS
before being removed--i.e. storage devices. No way a printer could come
under this category. Unless ... is it a multifunction device? Or does it
have a card reader or something on it?

 

Perhaps you'd like to have a look at the 5 external USB hard drives I have
plugged into this computer. All are set to NOT Cache (write) in Windows or
on the drive, and all are NTFS drives.

To check this for yourself:
Double click the safely remove hardware icon.
Select the device.
Click Properties.
Select the Policies Tab

Select Optimise for quick removal:
This disables Disk Caching on the disk and in Windows for the drive and
allows disconnection without using the Safely remove hardware option.
(I have 5 USB hard drives setup like this and have never had any problems
with them)

[or]
Select Optimise for Performance:
This enables Disk Caching and requires using the Safely remove Hardware
option BEFORE physically disconnecting the drive.

 

It prints and copies, also prints from the computer. I wouldn't know about a
card reader. It has pictbridge, but I don't have a digital camera. It's
supposed to have Image Zone for altering photos etc, but I didn't get some
disc for that with the machine.
hp 1315.

Geopelia

 

Geopelia wrote: Thank you everyone, most of your advice is over my head,

It would seem your printer is plugged in to a USB port on your computer,
like mine is.
I just turn my printer on and off as needed and never bother with the Safely
remove hardware option for the printer.

Windows XP automatically recognises if the printer is on or off without any
requirement to safely remove the hardware.

It's the same when I plug my iPod (with an 80GB hard drive) in and unplug
it. Windows automatically recognises that it's plugged in, and when I have
unplugged it, without me having to play around with the safely remove
hardware icon.

Then there's the multi-memory card reader I have plugged in permanently to a
USB port. Windows XP recognises when I have plugged in a a memory
card/memory stick and when it's removed, all without me having to play
around with the safely remove hardware option.

That icon has probably always been there you probably haven't noticed it
before...

No. As read somewhere sometime.... The only dumb questions are the ones
that aren't asked, especially when it comes to computers