Safely Remove Hardware

[Pete]

What is the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in my system
tray for? How do I use this function? Why do I need it?

[Dan DeStefano]

this is for use with external devices such as pc cards on laptops and
usb/firewire external hard drives. essentially, this feature stops the
hardware device so that you may use it. e.g. - if you have an external
usb/firewire hard drive and have write-caching enabled, just unplugging the
device without stopping it could result in data loss if the cached versions
of files have not been written to the disk yet. usually there is no problem
with neglecting to stop a hot-swappable device before unplugging it, but it
is always best to do so.

Dan DeStefano


"Pete" > wrote in message
...
> What is the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in my system
> tray for? How do I use this function? Why do I need it?

[Joli Ballew]

You can also use it to safely remove digital cameras.

--
Joli Ballew
Author of Windows XP Professional - The Ultimate Users Guide
NEW EDITION!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1932111832/qid=1051627390/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-6151436-5265553?v=glance&s=books

Purchase my XP E-books at www.expert-guides.com



"Dan DeStefano" <ddestefanoATwinmarcompaniesDOTcom> wrote in message
...
> this is for use with external devices such as pc cards on laptops and
> usb/firewire external hard drives. essentially, this feature stops the
> hardware device so that you may use it. e.g. - if you have an external
> usb/firewire hard drive and have write-caching enabled, just unplugging
the
> device without stopping it could result in data loss if the cached
versions
> of files have not been written to the disk yet. usually there is no
problem
> with neglecting to stop a hot-swappable device before unplugging it, but
it
> is always best to do so.
>
> Dan DeStefano
>
>
> "Pete" > wrote in message
> ...
> > What is the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in my system
> > tray for? How do I use this function? Why do I need it?
>
>