I noticed an icon in the tray next to the clock that is labeled "safely remove hardware". Right click revealed nothing about the item and I won't left click on it. I use AVG for virus protection and run daily scans. There was no recent reports of infection. I then installed Avast and Ad Aware. Both reported different items to remove. The icon remains. My os is XP Pro. Any ideas as to what this icon is,( I suspect it might be an auto format routine), and how I can remove it.

Thanks,
Tin_EarIt's ok. You can release your breath now Do you have any USB devices PLUGGED into your computer? That's all its telling you is that you have the safety feature... Nothing to fuss over

[glb]Flame[/glb]That is indeed a relief! I had never noticed that icon before and became very suspicous after being hit with a virus\trojan assualt recently. Thanks for the assist.

Tin_Ear

P.S. I'm a newbie in posting to forums, what's up with these YABBC TAGS and can they be modified. I seem to have one attached to my nic.Tin_Ear.....So that icon was never there prior to being INFECTED ..........Sounds a bit odd . Usually if you right click on the icon you should be able to see what its associated with ......... Check it out and let us know .......it MAY not be harmless.

What is your concern about the comment attached to your nick ?

dl65 That is your quote. That is the default, becuase YABB is the forum host, so of course, they are advertising for themselves. lol You can very easily change it however...

[glb]Flame[/glb]dl65
I never noticed this icon before. In true, this machine is a spare from my brother-in-law with his os and basic software, my hard drive added as a slave. After being hit by auto dialers and other pests I stumbled across this item and became concerned, if it is a virus\trojan then AVG, Avast and Ad Aware have not detected it.

My main concern is the fact I do not recall seeing this item before. On first boot I looked to see what the brother-in-law had running on this machine and I just don't recall seeing that there, he doesn't either.

Tin_Ear

Tin_Ear...... Ok , then left click on it and let it open ........then we will know what it is ..........
If it turns out to be nasty , we can deal with it ......but we need to know what it is . One more thing....be off-line when you try it ...just in case .


dl65Wait a sec..... I'm not ready to just open something that may dump 70+ Gbytes if this turns out to be a deadly item. You say you can deal with it. If this kills my drive(re-formats or other such problems), I will have to re-install the os and assorted software just to get back here to say things went down the crapper!

I see from your profile you are a senior poster and I do indeed value your opinion...but is this really a step that should be taken. Yes, others could learn from this. However I don't need to practice Russian roulette to know that it can have adverse results

Tin_Eardl65

For the benifit of the forum here are replies from online help sites that mirror Flame's response.

"Nothing to worry about that icon bcz its a windows xp's components.It
appears only when u attach a usb device to ur system.
So that Whenever u want to unplug your usb device u can safely first
stop the device working and then unplug it instead of DIRECT unpluging it."

"This icon normally appears when you plug in a USB device like a pen drive or something.
See a description here:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prdh_dmt_cgwi.asp"

Thanks to all for your assistance and comments.

Tin_EarOk, well come back and see us if you have any more questions!

[glb]Flame[/glb]