Recently, more and more people become to use SATAII hard disks which
are permanently attached to their systems, and I'm one of them. For
Windows Vista, I expected some improvements but the "Safely Remove
Hardware" is just the same as that of Windows XP. I never need to open
the "Safely Remove Hardware" but I sometimes accidentally double click
on it when I actually wanted to double click another icon. Then for
about 5 seconds the mouse cursor for the desktop shows the
'hourglass'.

Probably somebody might answer, go to the properties of the taskbar
and choose always hide, but that results in an unwanted expansion (<)
button. I've even found that somebody is selling a program to hide
this "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. If Microsoft just add a simple
option "Hide icon", then we don't have to waste our money to buy such
a program. Network icon, Volume icon and even the clock are all
hidable and why isn't it?

Can't Microsoft add the option to hide it or at least an option not to
notify for permanently attached SATA II disks (that actually can never
be safely removed) such as C?

How is the disk attached to the system? It sounds like it is using a usb to
sata adapter. If so this is why the safely remove icon exists. On my system I
run an SATA II drive that is connected directly to the motherboard controller
and I do not have a safely remove icon for it. I do have one for my USB
drives though and if I recall right there was one for the usb to sata adapter
I used for a short time. (I removed it after 2 days since it was causing
hardware conflicts)

"Cat" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Recently, more and more people become to use SATAII hard disks which
> are permanently attached to their systems, and I'm one of them. For
> Windows Vista, I expected some improvements but the "Safely Remove
> Hardware" is just the same as that of Windows XP. I never need to open
> the "Safely Remove Hardware" but I sometimes accidentally double click
> on it when I actually wanted to double click another icon. Then for
> about 5 seconds the mouse cursor for the desktop shows the
> 'hourglass'.
>
> Probably somebody might answer, go to the properties of the taskbar
> and choose always hide, but that results in an unwanted expansion (<)
> button. I've even found that somebody is selling a program to hide
> this "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. If Microsoft just add a simple
> option "Hide icon", then we don't have to waste our money to buy such
> a program. Network icon, Volume icon and even the clock are all
> hidable and why isn't it?
>
> Can't Microsoft add the option to hide it or at least an option not to
> notify for permanently attached SATA II disks (that actually can never
> be safely removed) such as C?
>
>[/color]

No, my disk is not connected through a usb adapter. It is directly
connected to a SATA port on the motherboard. I heard that if you
connect an SATA II disk using AHCI mode (which is the native mode of
SATA disks), Windows shows Safely Remove Hardware icon, because AHCI
supports removal of disks while the system is running (called 'Hot
swap'). But as I already wrote, a disk with the system drive (C) ,
cannot be removed while Windows is running. That's why I said Windows
should not show the icon for the system disk.

On Feb 15, 10:14 am, RickH <R...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> How is the disk attached to the system? It sounds like it is using a usb to
> sata adapter. If so this is why the safely remove icon exists. On my system I
> run an SATA II drive that is connected directly to the motherboard controller
> and I do not have a safely remove icon for it. I do have one for my USB
> drives though and if I recall right there was one for the usb to sata adapter
> I used for a short time. (I removed it after 2 days since it was causing
> hardware conflicts)
>
> "Cat" wrote:[color=green]
> > Recently, more and more people become to use SATAII hard disks which
> > are permanently attached to their systems, and I'm one of them. For
> > Windows Vista, I expected some improvements but the "Safely Remove
> > Hardware" is just the same as that of Windows XP. I never need to open
> > the "Safely Remove Hardware" but I sometimes accidentally double click
> > on it when I actually wanted to double click another icon. Then for
> > about 5 seconds the mouse cursor for the desktop shows the
> > 'hourglass'.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Probably somebody might answer, go to the properties of the taskbar
> > and choose always hide, but that results in an unwanted expansion (<)
> > button. I've even found that somebody is selling a program to hide
> > this "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. If Microsoft just add a simple
> > option "Hide icon", then we don't have to waste our money to buy such
> > a program. Network icon, Volume icon and even the clock are all
> > hidable and why isn't it?[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Can't Microsoft add the option to hide it or at least an option not to
> > notify for permanently attached SATA II disks (that actually can never
> > be safely removed) such as C?[/color][/color]