How many of you actually Safely eject the USB stick from your PC? Not many, I am sure. We have a habit of randomly pulling the USB drive out of the PC without safely ejecting it, which sometimes results in data loss. It is very important to safely eject the USB drive before removing it from your PC. It ensures that the data operation has completed and alerts the programs that the drive will be removed, thereby keeping your data safe.
Create a shortcut to eject USB in Windows PC
It doesn’t really harm your data, but for efficiency’s sake, it is recommended to eject the USB drive first, then remove it from the PC. If you remove it without warning your computer, it could result in data loss.
Windows has a feature of Quick Removal too which when enabled makes sure that your files are written quickly and you can quickly remove the hardware.
But the problem here is that it slightly affects performance.
It is pretty easy to eject a USB drive on a Windows computer; you can simply open MY PC, go to the drive you want to eject, right-click it, and click Eject.
However, you can also create a simple shortcut for this if you want to save a few clicks.
Read: Safely Remove Hardware not working
How to create a Safely Remove Hardware Shortcut in Windows 11
Go to your Desktop, right-click anywhere on the black space and select New > Shortcut.
This will open a new dialogue box, type in this RunDLL command –
%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll
Click on the Next button.
Give your shortcut a name, say Safely Remove Hardware and click on Finish.
You will then get a shortcut on your desktop.
Now go to the shortcut, right-click and open Properties.
Go to the Shortcut tab and click on the Shortcut Key -None
Press S on your keyboard and the command will change to CTRL+Alt+S automatically.
Click on Apply and then OK.
Your shortcut to Safely Remove Hardware is now created.
TIP: You can also use our freeware Handy Shortcuts to create this and other Desktop Shortcuts easily on Windows PC
If you don’t want to add another shortcut to your desktop, there is an alternative way to Safely remove hardware via Taskbar Settings.
Safely remove hardware in Windows via Taskbar Settings
- Right-click on your Taskbar to open the Taskbar Settings.
- Go to Taskbar corner overflow.
- Toggle on the button for Windows Explorer and you will instantly see the icon on the System Tray in your taskbar.
- You can do the same to safely remove Bluetooth devices by turning on the switch in the Taskbar corner overflow settings.
How do I force eject a hard drive in Windows 11?
Go to My PC, select the drive you want to eject, then right-click it. Select Eject from the context menu and then you can remove the drive.
Read: USB port remains active even after using Safely remove hardware
Is it safe to pull out the USB drive?
It doesn’t really harm your PC or the drive but may result in some data loss. It is always better to safely eject the device first, then remove it from your PC. Above are a few simple and quick ways to safely eject the USB drive.
