Safely Remove Hardware Icon Missing In Win 10

I looked for a quick fix around the web but found nothing that is working on my laptop with Windows 10 (info in signature).

My icon is missing to "Safely Remove Hardware". I've checked the System Tray and it's not there, and so far I haven't been able to figure out if it's hidden somewhere.

Can anyone put some light on this as I use my flashdrive as well as phone often.

Thanks for any help, and I am hoping this is the right "board" to put this topic on Denise

 

In Windows 10, if you don't have a device connected, the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon disappears from the System Tray/Notification area. Plug a USB device in and it will appear. Unplug it and the icon disappears again.

 

Hi Mdonah, and thank you for the reply. That is true, but it doesn't show up when I plug in my phone to transfer photos, or my regular camera either. Maybe there's no problem with those types of devices?? I mean it's safe just to unplug when finished?

 

If the 'Safely Remove Hardware' doesn't show, have a look at the Autoplay settings in Control Panel. The option to use autoplay for all media and devices should be checked.

 

Apparently your camera and phone are automatically optimized for quick removal and in that instance, the safely remove hardware icon won't show (see att'd).

 

Yes, I saw that, but mine reads differently:

 

So this as to do with the USB Safely Remove Software? I would have never figured that as a connection, I mean one having to do with the other. I'll go look, seems I do have mine on autoplay, bbs PS Ok, checked and Autoplay is checked. So does that mean they don't need the Safely Remove Hardware Eldon?

Thank you much

 

Are you looking at the right device?

 

I thought I was, let me check. I looked at the Disc Drives.

 

this is what I have to choose from, I'm confused.

 

Plug in a flash drive. It will show under Disk drives.

 

If your camera and phone aren't showing, the device drivers aren't installed for them.

I have 2 LG phones that require the LG Universal USB driver be installed on my system in order for them to be detected by Windows and allow me to access them directly. I can, of course, pull the Micro SD cards, put them in an SD Card adapter and put the adapter in my SD Card reader slot on my laptops.

My digital camera, unfortunately, only has an SD Card to pull and insert into the reader slot, no USB port.

I'm curious though. When you insert your camera or phone into your laptop's USB port via your cable connection does an upward pointing arrow/triangle show up on the left side of the System Tray/Notification area? Also, in Device Manager, expand Universal Serial Bus Controllers with either your camera or phone connected and see what shows there.

 

I finally figured out what I needed to "look" for Eldon. When I tried my flashdrive, you can see I saw it (sandisk) in the snip. When I checked the disk drive again, I got the same window MDonah showed me.

I didn't know I had to install a driver MDonah, because when I plugged in the cord, my files from my phone just showed up and I clicked/uploaded them to my laptop. Then when I wanted to disconnect I looked for the icon and it wasn't there.

Here is a screenshot that shows all icons I get if phone cord/with phone attached is plugged in. But when I plug in the flashdrive, the icon for SRH is there. Thanks you guys denise

 

I now see the upward pointing arrow I inquired about. I, personally, don't like that arrow showing because I have a lot of startup items and I want to be sure they all start on login so, I've got the Notification Area set to Always show all icons in the notification area.

 

I use to have it that way, and I haven't felt a need to see everything that is running but that's a good reminder because I forgot I could have those all down with the 2 I do have showing

 

Your phone connects as a MTP(Media Transfer Protocol) device while your camera connects as a PTP(Picture Transfer Protocol) device. Because of this, there will be no 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon.

 

Thank you, I appreciate learning about that Now I can stop worrying whether to use them or not.