How can I remove the option to eject SATA drives from the Windows 7 tray icon?

How can I remove the option to eject SATA drives from the Windows 7 tray icon? The Safely Remove Hardware icon in Windows 7 offers the ability to eject my SATA drives, including the boot drive. I don't see myself ever needing this - especially not from the convenience of the tray icon.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 370

Total answers/comments: 5

Comments display order:

bert [Entry]

"The answer really depends on what driver you're set up with. I have a 6 port SATA connector (Intel ICH9 - 2922) and I use the default MS-AHCI driver. If you're in the same boat, create a couple of new keys here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

_

\Controller0\Channel0
\Channel1
\Channel2
\Channel3
\Channel4
\Channel5

Now create a new DWORD - name: TreatAsInternalPort, value: 1 under each of the ChannelN keys. Now reboot for the changes to take effect and the drives should no longer show up under 'Safely Remove..'

Geeky stuff:

The root cause of the problem is the SATA driver incorrectly determined that your internal SATA port is external. So, if you look at the 'Capabilities' value for your drive(s) under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\IDE\..\.. its probably set at 0x4 which makes it removable (as per the bit flag ORing done of the values below) Once you add the setting to the registry, the SATA driver now returns a different Capabilities value (most probably 0) and the drive stops showing up under 'Safely Remove..'

//from inc/api/cfgmgr32.h (WINDDK)
#define CM_DEVCAP_LOCKSUPPORTED (0x00000001)
#define CM_DEVCAP_EJECTSUPPORTED (0x00000002)
#define CM_DEVCAP_REMOVABLE (0x00000004)
#define CM_DEVCAP_DOCKDEVICE (0x00000008)
#define CM_DEVCAP_UNIQUEID (0x00000010)
#define CM_DEVCAP_SILENTINSTALL (0x00000020)
#define CM_DEVCAP_RAWDEVICEOK (0x00000040)
#define CM_DEVCAP_SURPRISEREMOVALOK (0x00000080)
#define CM_DEVCAP_HARDWAREDISABLED (0x00000100)
#define CM_DEVCAP_NONDYNAMIC (0x00000200)"

bert [Entry]

It's a BIOS level option. In newer boards there are options in the BIOS to disable hot swapping (when you use AHCI/RAID as a controller). When the hot swap setting for a drive is disabled in the BIOS, it won't be listed in the ejectable drives in the system tray icon menu.

bert [Entry]

follow this steps Go to CONTROL PANEL- DEVICE MANAGER - STORAGE CONTROLLERS - then right click the MARVELL91XXsata6g CONTROLLER choose POLICIES unpick the ENABLE SAFELY REMOVE DISK and press OK the restart your computer

bert [Entry]

In BIOS, under Storage Configuration I changed 'Configure SATA as' from IDE to AHCI and that fixed it.

bert [Entry]

"I also encountered this problem when I had a SSD as my boot drive and a HDD as an extra storage device.

I tried all the registry editing techniques. But none worked out, the only thing which worked out for me was to update the BIOS.

I was using a Dell notebook, I downloaded the latest BIOS upgrade from the dell.com/support site, entered the service tag, which I found in the BIOS menu, under maintenance, downloaded the driver and ran the program. The problem was rectified."