I also keep losing this from the system tray and it's a bloody nuisance, it
keeps dropping into "Past Items" on the task bar Properties and I can't
determine why.
No drivers were needed with my USB harddrive, Windows recognised it
immediately so I presume already had system drivers to enable it. So this
Safely Remove Hardware just vanishes. The only way I've found around it is
item 53 on the Viper site but I really don't want to use third party SQL. Is
there no fix though Microsoft.
--
Paul

I've got a Western Digital external USB HD that needs drivers installed, but
only requires the user to hit the power off button to disable it, so it might
be wise to check the manual in your particular case.