Disable possibility to eject internal hardrives

I recently installed Windows 7 Home Premium and suddenly saw that I could eject my internal hard drives:

Eject internal harddrives

With my previous installation (Professional), this was not possible. How could a (by definition) less advanced version of an operating system suddenly allow such a function? I didn't change anything in my computers bios, uefi, hardware - just the os version.

Anyway, I don't like that this is possible and I don't want to see the icon for my internal drives - how can I remove it? Of course, it should still show for external drives connected via USB/eSATA.

F.P

Posted 2013-02-28T19:31:09.367

Reputation: 307

1This also happend sometimes on XP and Vista and my guess is it's driver-related. – gronostaj – 2013-02-28T19:37:12.033

Answers

Install the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver or use the TreatAsInternalPort workaround.

Regedit your way to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

and create a new KEY called "Controller0" inside Controller0, create a new KEY called "Channel0" Now inside Channel0, create a new DWORD called "TreatAsInternalPort" set this value to "1" (this sets SATA port 0 (Drive C)to no longer show up in "Safely Remove Hardware")

Now, go back into the Controller0 folder again. inside Controller0, create a new KEY called "Channel1" Now inside Channel1, create a new DWORD called "TreatAsInternalPort" set this value to "1" (this sets SATA port 1 (Drive D)to no longer show up in "Safely Remove Hardware")

And so on, until all internal SATA ports are set to be treated as Internal. My motherboard has 6 SATA ports, so I have set Channel0 to Channel5.

enter image description here (Imagesource: overclock.net)

magicandre1981

Posted 2013-02-28T19:31:09.367

Reputation: 86 560

1The only correct way is to install Intel Rapid Storage Technology. – Petr Abdulin – 2013-03-01T06:19:04.640

You're golden! That was actually one of the drivers I didn't install because I was sure I didn't need whatever it was providing. Turns out I was wrong. After installing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver, the eject-menu only applies to actuall removable external drives. Thanks a bunch! – F.P – 2013-03-01T18:28:06.993

It would appear that this "functionality" is brought on by the use of SATA2 drives and compatible motherboards. These devices are designed to be able to be hot-swappable so Windows allows you to safely remove them.

So far, there is no safe way of removing the listings from the context menu while still allowing external devices to appear.

Kruug

Posted 2013-02-28T19:31:09.367

Reputation: 5 078

I understand, but why didn't it ever show up when I was running W7 Professional? – F.P – 2013-02-28T20:10:05.417

2When you were running W7 Pro, was it factory installed? Did you manually install new drivers under W7 Home Premium? Factory may have left off a driver that you installed. – Kruug – 2013-02-28T20:12:14.043

No, the machine is completely self-built and I installed both OS myself, including the same drivers. And that's exactly what bothers me so much, because I feel like I missed something this time – F.P – 2013-02-28T20:16:16.020

Other than the OS, what did you change to get the current setup? – Kruug – 2013-02-28T20:18:51.997

Nothing that I know of. In fact, as I had both OS installed for a short time an I switched between them on boot, on Prof. it didn't show up and on HP it did. I guess I did miss some driver, but which one could it be? – F.P – 2013-02-28T20:54:03.303