Safely remove/C drive

[#1]

Have reformatted a friend's Vista laptop, put an additional 1GB of RAM in and it is all updated and working well. However, the Safely Remove icon is remaining in the notification area, pointing to the Fujitsu SCSI disk device (C drive). This wasn't there before reformat. Have checked device manager and the drivers are OK and it reports that it is woking correctly.
Have googled the 'problem' and can't find a fix. Most people just hide the icon (which is what I have done).
Just wondered if anyone else had seen this and if so, have they found a solution? Would like to get rid of it if possible.

[#2]

Are you sure c: is the system drive.
I did a laptop some time ago and for some unknown reason vista assigned the letter I: to the system drive

[#3]

I think it's because Windows 7 has support for hot-swapping drives (i.e. changing while the PC is running) and as that's a drive that _could_ be hotswapped the option is there. Not sure what unmounting the drive the operating system runs from while the OS is running would do though 😕
I don't think it's a problem, but I'd definitely hide the icon - I think in the options for the system tray you can prevent it from displaying at any time.
Perhaps (this is a complete guess) there's something you can do in the disk management section of Computer Management?

[#4]

AIUI its related to certain SATA controllers (as SATA inherently supports hot-swapping). 
I suspect a driver update direct from the manufacturer would fix it, or some registry delving to mark the disk as not-swappable.
Cheers
B.

[#5]

win7xp - drive letter OK. I partitioned the C drive to C and D, renaming the CD/DVD drive to E first.
Matt - this is Vista and yes, my googling did return this thing about hot-swapping but no solution alas. I have the icon hidden so can almost forget about it but as we all know, these little quibbles are really irritating. 
Barry - have checked online for newer drivers via the Windows check but it always returns the same - best drivers installed and all working properly.
With regards to the registry hack there were one or two suggestions in my research but TBH I don't want to mess about unless I am 100% sure that it is the right thing to do as don't want to mess it up.
I know that I can reformat it again but really don't want to as it has taken hours to update.
Thanks for suggestions everybody - looks like I will just have to hide and forget.
 

[#6]

You should get a "Chipset Driver" from the laptop website, not from Windows Update - that may cure it.
Cheers
B.

[#7]

well im on Win 7... and i get that option for both my SATA drives, ofc its not a problem with 7 as the icon is hidden by default anyway, i think you'll just have to hide it, or advise your friend to be very careful what they "safely remove"
in fairness though... by default, on Windows 7 and Vista there is no reason to use safely remove, removable devices are automatically put into "safely remove" mode when their not actually having files transferred to them, the only reason you should have to use it is in the following circumstances:
1. you change the option i mentioned (by default Internal drives (IE hard drives) are set to need safely remove and USB devices (external hard drives, flash drives etc.) are set to "auto safe" (thats not actually the name... i can't find the option at the moment to check it)
2. you actually have a file transfer in progress when you want to remove it... why you would want to do that i don't know.... but you never know, and you can always cancel the transfer before removing it
by contrast on XP you DO need to use Safely remove, before anyone jumps in with that one, or tries it on XP 

[#8]

Thank you for replying. From further enquiries I gather that it is quite 'normal' and although I located a registry fix for it I have opted to leave it alone. As you say, it is hidden and even if someone did click on it it wouldn't work because the drive is in use. Funny little quirk though. 
Just to add that I didn't know about the difference with W7 so it is useful information. I have an external hard drive and this doesn't show eject so I was unsure about disconnecting it - have tended to wait until I have switched the laptop off. Now that I have this information don't need to be so concerned.