SATA Internal Hard Drive now "Removable"?

[C R C]

Hello. I am not sure when this started but the "Safely Remove Hardware"
icon has my two internal SATA drives listed as "Removable" storage! Does
anyone else have this? Tonight, I did remove my drive F which is in the
second SATA drive. Heck, I can even remove the primary drive, if I click on
it, where the Vista OS is. But I wont dare do it!

 

[Bob Knowlden]

This was normal for a mainboard using an nVidia nForce 4 chipset. What's
yours?

(I believe that you can't remove the drive with the OS.)


Return address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.

 

[Adam Albright]

Hello. I am not sure when this started but the "Safely Remove Hardware"
icon has my two internal SATA drives listed as "Removable" storage! Does
anyone else have this? Tonight, I did remove my drive F which is in the
second SATA drive. Heck, I can even remove the primary drive, if I click on
it, where the Vista OS is. But I wont dare do it!

Probably just another boneheaded Vista message that means nothing. As
long as your SATA drives are internal and NOT connected via USB or
Firewire the warning is meaningless is it is only there to safely
"unmount" the drive if connected via USB or Firewire or some other
external interface. An internal drive is always mounted automatically
when you boot up.

To get rid of the annoying nag screen you could uninstall the drive.
Then let Vista find "new hardware" again, but knowing Vista, who knows
what it might do. It might end up saying it doesn't see the drive and
they you'll be in worse shape. A safer way while a pain would be to
remove everything on the drive put it on a drive Vista does accept as
an internal, then format the problem drive and then put the files back
on it.

Vista can do weird things. Several months back I bought a new
enclosure for one of my external drives. Vista saw it... sort of, it
then said "insert blank disk in Dive H". Nice trick if you could
insert a blank disk into a hard drive.

 

[C R C]

That's it! I clicked on the Auto Update on some Nvidia files last weekend.
Yes, I have a motherboard with Nvidia MCP61S chipset.

 

[C R C]

Well, if you paid attention to my original post, I did try to remove my
drive F which is on the second SATA drive (non essential drive for TEMP, and
storage for Pics and Video), and I successfully removed it from the system.
It disappeared from my "My Computer"! Another poster who replied to my
original post says it is "Normal" for main boards using the nVidia chipset,
which I have, and I updated the nVidia drivers through Windows Update last
weekend! Whoever thought of that as feature is crazy because my SATA drives
are internal. Yes, SATA can now be external, but I don't like that feature
on the internal drives. But then, I guess the system has no way of
determining whether the SATA drive is internal or external, I guess.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Visit http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
and click on the "Motherboard Drivers" button to find the
latest platform drivers, then download and install.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello. I am not sure when this started but the "Safely Remove Hardware"
icon has my two internal SATA drives listed as "Removable" storage! Does
anyone else have this? Tonight, I did remove my drive F which is in the
second SATA drive. Heck, I can even remove the primary drive, if I click on
it, where the Vista OS is. But I wont dare do it!

 

[Frank]

Probably just another boneheaded Vista message that means nothing. As
long as your SATA drives are internal and NOT connected via USB or
Firewire the warning is meaningless is it is only there to safely
"unmount" the drive if connected via USB or Firewire or some other
external interface. An internal drive is always mounted automatically
when you boot up.

To get rid of the annoying nag screen you could uninstall the drive.
Then let Vista find "new hardware" again, but knowing Vista, who knows
what it might do. It might end up saying it doesn't see the drive and
they you'll be in worse shape. A safer way while a pain would be to
remove everything on the drive put it on a drive Vista does accept as
an internal, then format the problem drive and then put the files back
on it.

Vista can do weird things. Several months back I bought a new
enclosure for one of my external drives. Vista saw it... sort of, it
then said "insert blank disk in Dive H". Nice trick if you could
insert a blank disk into a hard drive.

How stupid are you mr prius? Ever get that one little install of Vista
business to run properly? Oh...I forgot...it's MS's fault...hahaha...of
course it is you ignorant as*hole...hahaha...lol!
You're our village idiot and the laughing stock of this ng.
How does that feel mr prius?
Frank

 

[dennis@home]

Well, if you paid attention to my original post, I did try to remove my
drive F which is on the second SATA drive (non essential drive for TEMP,
and storage for Pics and Video), and I successfully removed it from the
system. It disappeared from my "My Computer"! Another poster who replied
to my original post says it is "Normal" for main boards using the nVidia
chipset, which I have, and I updated the nVidia drivers through Windows
Update last weekend! Whoever thought of that as feature is crazy because
my SATA drives are internal. Yes, SATA can now be external, but I don't
like that feature on the internal drives. But then, I guess the system
has no way of determining whether the SATA drive is internal or external,
I guess.

Don't worry Adam doesn't read the posts he just has a quick glance and
chooses ones he thinks he knows about so he can score points.
It has been pointed out to him on multiple occasions that he doesn't read
the posts or doesn't understand what the question is but it makes no
difference.
He will just insult you and call you a fanboy now you have pointed out his
error.
Ignore him as he is obviously insane.


On the subject of your question I suspect the answer lies in how does Vista
tell the difference between an eSATA drive and a SATA drive?
I don't know but it may point someone in the right direction to providing a
fix rather than just an explanation if you aren't satisfied with just
ignoring the problem as it shouldn't cause any real trouble.

 

[Adam Albright]

Don't worry Adam doesn't read the posts he just has a quick glance and
chooses ones he thinks he knows about so he can score points.

Score points? Oh, that's why you think I post, well ok.

Score Card:

Fanboy butt kissers 6
Adam 1,045

Next

 

[Frank]

Score points? Oh, that's why you think I post, well ok.

Score Card:

Fanboy butt kissers 6
Adam 1,045

Next

You're a big fat ZERO mr prius.
Frank

 

[Richard]

I downloaded the latest drivers and nothing changed. My hard drives are still
listed as "removable"

 

[GTS]

Yes, both my internal SATA drives are shown as removable. This is normal
and is shown because SATA drives can be hot swappable, though I would use
great caution with that as not all hardware supports it.

 

[Richard]

Is there any way to make the internal SATA drives "non-removable"?

I am not intending to swap them hot or otherwise and I definitely do not
want to end up with a removed system drive.

 

[GTS]

To my knowlege, No.
I don't think "Safely Remove Hardware" would allow "removing" / stopping the
system drive.
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