for what reason i now dont have the icon to safely turn off my external usb hard drive
Open 'My Computer', right-click the drive & see if there's an 'eject' option - use that to remove the drive & then try plugging it into a different USB port - see if the 'safely remove' icon appears. I've noticed on my system that drives I regularly attach do seem to be accepted as permanent drives by Win7 & don't give the 'safely remove' icon. Using a different USB port seems to kid the system into thinking it's a totally new drive.
There's probably a more technical way around the problem, but the above works for me.
"I've always been mad, I know I've been mad, like the most of us..."
Windows wants to hide some icons for some stupid reason. click on the triangle at the left end of the row of icons to see if you get a message to show hidden icons. If the safely remove then shows use the customize to change the way Windows treats it.
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