Hello,
I followed this tutorial to enable AHCI:
AHCI : Enable in Windows 7 / Vista
and after it installed the device drivers I restarted the pc and now I see the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon for my HDD. Is there a way to remove it ? I am afraid of the consequences of accidentally removing my hard drive while it's operating.
Thanks!
Go to this web site
Solved: How to remove internal devices from showing in safely remove hardware list? [Archive] - AnandTech Forums
and read the comment from TJCS at 6.40pm on 3-12-10. Gives you step-by-step on how to stop internal drives from showing up in "Safely Remove Hardware" list. It worked for me.
That condition usually happens because you are running on the generic AHCI driver that comes with Windows 7. This usually happens on systems with an Intel chipset.
The solution is to install the specific AHCI driver offered by your motherboard or PC manufacturer in their Downloads section. This driver could be just the Intel Matrix Storage Manager (older PCs), or Rapid Storage Technology Driver, if there is not a specific AHCI driver offered.
TVeblen is correct. It is the Intel Rapid Storage driver. It is intel's raid driver but contains their AHCI driver IaStor. No, you don't have to run raid with it. But, you get their AHCI driver. You may find 2 of them, one will usually say for floppy drive. Don't get that one, you don't need it. Get the other one.
Thank you all for your help.
I actually tried to eject my hard drive but Windows said that it's already in use so I'm OK with this little notification now, I also heard that it's actually a normal thing to have when using AHCI as part of hot swapping or something like that so I'm not worrying anymore. ( sorry I am not familiar with AHCI or hot swapping.. I just heard that switching from IDE to AHCI will improve the HDD performance so that's what I did :), I don't really know what's that but tried anyway)
Here is another discussion.
FIX: AHCI/SATA drives showing in "Safely Remove Hardware"
It is OK if you want to leave it alone, you are correct in that Windows will not allow you to eject the System Drive.
But having internal drive identified as removable drives is not 'normal'. And, you may get slightly better performance by using the Matrix driver.
Windows provides a generic AHCI driver to provide functionality on installation, but this driver is not optimized for your system.
Your choice.
Quote