Solved No option to Safely Remove external NVME drive

Is it normal for Win11 to not offer an option to Safely Remove external NVME drives? When I power on the enclosure, I get the "thumb drive" icon near the clock and (initialized) drives operate normally, but when it's time to eject, I click that same thumb drive icon in the system tray, but there's no Safely Remove Hardware option.

In Device Manager, under the NVME disk drives, in the Policies tab, I selected "Better Performance" (which requires you to Safely Remove Hardware) and I have "Enable Write Caching" ticked below that, but still not seeing an option to safely remove or eject.

Is this normal behavior for Windows 11? Is there any way to get the Safely Remove Hardware option back? I'd feel uncomfortable merely turning off the enclosure or disconnecting the USB connection. Thanks so much.

To add: This is the (dual bay) NVME enclosure I just purchased and added two Samsung 980 (non pro) NVME sticks): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B82K9SN5/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

Also, forgot to mention. The enclosure is connected to a 10gbps USB Type-C rear port. (USB 3.2 Gen 2)
And the drives in the device manager show as "JMicron PCIe0586 SCSI Disk Device" and "JMicron PCIe1586 SCSI Disk Device" Just wondering if external NVMEs normally show as SCSI.

Have you turned on the Settings/System/Notifications/Get notifications from other apps and senders option? I beleive that might be the answer.

DigitalGoat said:

Have you turned on the Settings/System/Notifications/Get notifications from other apps and senders option? I beleive that might be the answer.

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Thanks. I'm always able to eject regular thumb drives. I enabled the notifications. But still, when the (USB type-C connected) NVME drives are mounted and I click on the "thumb drive" icon near in the system tray, I see the dual bay drives listed, but no option to Safely Remove Hardware.

(I also see the drives in my explorer navigation pane but I don't see them listed in Settings/Bluetooth & Devices/Devices)

As a test to see if it made a difference, I tried connecting the NVME enclosure to a USB 3.1 type-A port with an included type-A to type-C cable. Same thing. No Eject option.

That's what I meant all along.: No EJECT option.

Sorry.. I keep adding this this thread. I attached this NVMe enclosure to an old laptop (win11) and I CAN Eject the device.. So it's something on my Lenovo Legion gaming PC: Hardware, drivers, or settings/services I disabled.

I've got 3x Sabrent Rocket 4.0 NVMe drives in 3x enclosures, attached to a USB Type-C hub (Juiced Systems) connected to my USB Type-C port on the back of my motherboard, and I can see them listed in the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon (the one you're calling the thumbdrive icon).

Check to see if there is a driver that you need to install for the dock itself. Additionally, do go back and re-enable everything that you've disabled and see if it makes a difference.

johnlgalt said:

I've got 3x Sabrent Rocket 4.0 NVMe drives in 3x enclosures, attached to a USB Type-C hub (Juiced Systems) connected to my USB Type-C port on the back of my motherboard, and I can see them listed in the Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media icon (the one you're calling the thumbdrive icon).

Check to see if there is a driver that you need to install for the dock itself. Additionally, do go back and re-enable everything that you've disabled and see if it makes a difference.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I should have checked but this enclosure doesn't even have a website nor can I find any drivers.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B82K9SN5/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

What's strange is, I connected my old toaster style dual bay HDD enclosure to the Legion desktop. Same issue! ...no Eject option. I can eject thumb drives, but not external HDD/SDD drives. So it's a hardware or software issue with my new Legion Desktop. .. which I need to figure out. Thx.

EDIT: worse case, I can eject by running: RunDll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll

Well, to be fair, I didn't have that setting on for any of the three external NVMe drives, but I've enabled it now. So my drives showed in the Safely Remove app even without that setting, meaning the system recognized them as external drives.

However, when I look in Settings --> Bluetooth & devices --> Devices, I see my Sabrent drives listed,

Do you see yours also?

No. They are not listed there. They show fine in explorer but nothing in Devices under Bluetooth & Devices.
INPUT: Keyboard, mouse
AUDIO: Speakers Realtek
OTHER DEVICES: Monitor

Then that is the first clue - the system is not recognizing them as external device to begin with.

It might have to do with the fact that that device is, at least partially, designed to be a stand alone cloning device, with a completely independent power supply, that you don't even need to connect to a computer to use. It might be that it needs a driver or two apart from the standard Windows driver that was installed to make it function as an external device. Speaking of which, what is the driver for the clone device (not the drives themselves, but the actual enclosure, if it shows in Device Manager)?

It's a good point, because both of my enclosures (Inateck dual HDD) and (Maiwo dual NVME) have a stand alone clone feature and are both self powered.... obviously if it's stand-alone lol
I tried to uninstall the actual drives in device manager. No change.
Under Storage Controllers /
-Microsoft Storage Space Controller
-Standard NVM Express Controller
-USB Attached SCSI (UAS) Mass Storage Device

Also in Device mgr, under Portable devices, it has the 2 drives listed in the names I gave them- SSD1 and SSD2.

I removed one HDD from my dual HDD enclosure. Still not Eject option.

To summarize. I have a Lenovo Legion desktop and an old Dell laptop both running Win11pro and both Win11 OS's are configured almost the same. The laptop is running a slightly older Win11 build.. (22621.1265 vs 22621.1555)

When I connect the dual NVME enclosure OR my old toaster style dual HDD enclosure to the old laptop (regardless of USB port), the EJECT option is always available in the Safely Remove Hardware menu in the system tray.

When I connect the same enclosures to my Lenovo Legion desktop (regardless of which USB port) , there is no Eject option in the Safely Remove Hardware menu in the system tray

So that tells me it's either a driver or hardware issue or combo of both with my Lenovo Legion desktop. Unless the old Dell laptop is more lenient in seeing external HDD/SSD drives as external/removable?

I think the self powered & clone feature of the dock may be a red herring, I have an IcyDock 2 bay external USB 3.0 dock, own power supply, clone ability while not connected and during normal use I can eject either/ both of the HDDs without any drivers needed.
I also have a TerraMaster 4 bay JBOD enclosure (no cloning function but self powered) that connects with USB C and again I can eject individual drives or all drives without any issue, no drivers needed.

I would suggest the issue is with either the USB controller of the laptop or it's drivers rather than the drive enclosures, the one thing both my devices have in common is that they state an Asmedia? USB controller or compatible is required.

OK. Thanks. The old 2006 Dell laptop has the Eject option and ejects both (nvme and HDD) dual bay enclosures just fine.
So the Lenovo Legion desktop may have issues with the USB Controller or it's drivers, and regardless of USB port used (USB 2.0, 3.0. 3.2, type-c) there's still no eject option. I've been looking into that. Not much out there.

When I get a chance, I'm going to remove all of the USB controllers in Device manager and let them reinstall on bootup.

I deleted the USB controllers. No Change.
FIXED IT... Device Setup Manager service was disabled. DUH! That service is needed to eject certain usb drives and card readers.

Now I feel like an idiot for wasting your time. Thanks so much for trying to help.

Now I get to mount the heat shields to the NVMEs and do some speed tests. I'm ordering a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 card. An entire day wasted.

Not really a waste of time, bouncing ideas off other people can help to point you in a direction you may not have considered as related.
Glad you found and sorted the issue, just chalk it up as a learning experience for a positive spin.

jseeley said:

Now I feel like an idiot for wasting your time. Thanks so much for trying to help.

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DigitalGoat said:

Not really a waste of time, bouncing ideas off other people can help to point you in a direction you may not have considered as related.
Glad you found and sorted the issue, just chalk it up as a learning experience for a positive spin.

Click to expand...

Not only that, but it may help someone in the future as well. Glad you figured it out.