lost 'safely remove hardware icon'

[Holly Kubick]

I am using XP serv. pack 2. I recently lost the icon to safely remove
hardware from my taskbar. I have gone to the Control Panel/taskbar and
start menu to reistablish it, but it will not appear. The devices I am
using seem to be working just fine but I am supposed to use the safely
remove hardward icon before unplugging them--if not I can lose a driver or
information contained on the devices.

After about 4 attempts to re-establish the icon, I found that the icon
(picture on the list) changed to that of a closed folder and the icon
picture with the arrow appeared at the 'My Documents line. I am not sure
just when this occured as I do not use the devices every day. The recent
changes to the computer include updates from Dell and pop-up defininion
updates to AD-ware. I hope someone can help me understand this. Thanks

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Holly.

What kind of hardware: printer? "flash drive"? What kind of connection:
USB? Parallel port?

If it is a device such as a flash drive or camera connected via USB, you can
do this:

Go to Disk Management. (Start | Run | diskmgmt.msc) Maximize the window;
click View and set it to show the Volume List at the top and the Graphical
View at the bottom.

In the Graphical View, right-click on that device, choose Properties, then
the Policies tab. Here you can choose between Optimize for quick removal
and Optimize for performance. The quick removal setting makes sure that
each file is closed immediately after use so that the device can be removed
safely. The performance option speeds things up by caching data, rather
than write it to the device immediately; this data can be lost if the data
is disconnected without warning WinXP.

Either setting might be OK, depending on how YOU use this device in your
computer.

RC