5CheeseLasagna

Do you have an nForce based motherboard? Are you running WinXP or 2003? Are you tired of the Safely Remove Hardware icon sitting in your system tray telling you that your SATA devices are safely removeable?? Do you think that the only solution is to set it on Always Hide? Do you want a better solution than that so your system tray is cleaner? Would you also like this icon to continue showing up when you really do have a removeable device in, such as a USB Flash drive?

Disclaimer: I know that SATA is "hot-swappable", but how many average users will use this feature? I know I'll never use it!

Well, thanks to TaiDinh, I now have the definitive solution, and I want to pass it on to you. I did a quick search on our forums, and I found this thread.

Here's the URL that TaiDinh posted which includes the fix (it's a registry tweak)

http://www.trilithium.com/johan/2006...move-hardware/



But for those of you who are like me and just want to see the solution right now, then here it is:

We're going to add a DWORD Value called "DisableRemovable".

To do this, we need to open up the registry key named "nvata" for 32-bit users, and "nvata64" for 64-bit users.

Here's the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\nvata

For 64 bit users, look for "nvata64" instead of "nvata".

Now, if you'd like to learn how to add the DWORD Value, then follow these steps. We don't want to make any mistakes in our Registry, so perform these steps with care:

1. Right-click on the key (again, nvata for 32-bit, nvata64 for 64-bit).
2. Move your mouse over to New. A menu of 6 choices total appears.
3. Left-click on DWORD Value, but always making sure that you have the correct key highlighted/selected (again, nvata or nvata64).
4. After choosing DWORD Value, you may immediately begin typing the name of the new DWORD Value, which is DisableRemovable.

Now we need to save the name we just created and then Modify the Value data to make this DWORD Value work the way we want it to.

1. Press Enter twice; pressing it once after typing the name saves it, and pressing it a 2nd time opens up the DWORD Value to Modify it.
2. The Edit DWORD Value dialog box appears. Before doing anything else, just type the number 1, and then press Enter. Leave Regedit open for now.

Congratulations! You've just successfully created a new DWORD Value called DisableRemovable for the nvata/nvata64 registry key! You've also just successfully modified it's Value data so that it functions the way we want it to!

Okay, so Regedit is still open. We do want to close it, but first, we want to collapse the tree. Regedit likes to stay expanded, or rather, it doesn't automatically collapse everything when you close it to give you a fresh start the next time you open it (I have a fix for that too!), so simply do this:

1. Click on the key again (nvata or nvata64) to highlight/select it.
2. Press your left arrow exactly 9 times.

Now you're at the top of the tree with My Computer selected and the tops of the five trees showing. A 10th time will collapse My Computer too. So if you've collapsed My Computer, just press the right-arrow key once. Now you may close Regedit!

But wait, we're not done yet! The final step is to restart your computer, and when it's all done starting up, you'll no longer have to deal with that icon for no good reason!


Cool, huh?


Be sure to give all credit to TaiDinh for being the one who found the solution! I'm just bringing it to the present day to share it with the current crowd here on OCN.

There you go. This worked for me, and I hope it works for you! If you have ANY questions, please feel free to send me a private message. I don't promise any definitive answers, but I am ready to share the tweak that prevents Regedit from staying expanded after closing it!

The_Rocker

Nice but I havent got any NVata keys or folders in my registry?

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5CheeseLasagna

Good call. I need to update this that it's for WinXP and 2003. I got so excited that I forgot all about it. Thank you for bringing this up!

It has been updated.

wigseryc

'scribed - For use with my other pc when i finally get back to it.

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feels good man.

Aumotocnic: "An unfortunate member of the overclock.net insomnia club"