Since techs have been inside your computer lately ...

As I recall, the Firewire port on the Front Panel goes straight to the motherboard.

For the Front Panel USB ports … I think they run through the MIO Board. MIO Board connects to MB with 26pin cable, that splits to 3 cables. Those 3 cable plugs connect to the motherboard at USB1, USB2, and Front_Panel sockets.

You might start by checking all your cables, and load the latest Command Center to flash the MIO Board to the latest version.

But more likely, it's just a Windows 7 problem. The Task-Tray icon cache can sometimes get corrupted (I just saw this the other day on Win-XP) causing the icons to not appear properly. I had to edit the registry to fix it. Not sure if it's the same on Win-7. You might just try Customise/ Reset Default Icon Behaviors.

You can also eject a drive from My Computer/ Drive Properties/ Eject.

Also, a general note ... if the external drive has it's own power supply, turn it on before connecting the USB cable. This will prevent the computer from thinking it's a small device that it needs to power from the port. If not done this way, sometimes the computer will try to power the large device and will over-amp the port.

well the reason im confused is because when i plug it into the back directly into the mainboard the icon appears and everything works normally...its only in the front does this problem occur.  The hd i have is a passport elite and it does not require a power supply.

Is the audio static at least fixed after the switch? I have still yet to get mine done as I heard people were getting it replaced with the same part and it would take a while for the new ones to get into circulation.

Can i ask a question???

Do the usb ports go to the mainboard via wires.

the reason i asked this question is i noticed the same thing on my area 51 running vista i found out because the usb ports where not soildered to the mainboard but connected via wire to the main board that there was no power going to the usb ports so the ports out the front of the machine are non powered ports so only certain devices function in those ports i.e usb thumb sticks low voltage external hard drives and even low voltage usb game controllers.

however apon connecting my external hard drive to the powered ports at the back of the machine i noticed the icon appeared and was functioning normally.

i eventually solved this issue by replacing my 3 1/2 inch disk drive with a internal 4 port usb hub powered off of the computers power supply.

In my previous post I described how it is wired. I'll add that the MIO Board has it's own power plug (like a HDD) that powers it and likely the 2 USB ports.

It doesn't matter if the USB ports are on-board or via a wire ... the spec. says they should all provide up to 0.5 amps (500 ma) of power.

Yes, I too have seen some devices that are suppose to not need external power ... but probably should have been designed to anyway (too big ... too much power required). If the device DOES have external power ... be sure to turn it on before connecting it (so that the PC doesn't try to power it). Windows is suppose to tell you ... you are over-ampping the port but many times, the PC hardware itself doesn't properly support this feature (so Windows doesn't have a chance).

Some laptops have "high-power-output" USB ports ... but I'm not sure how much more powerfull they are.

With a desktop, a powered USB hub is the way to go (like what you did ... or an external one).

I have a similar problem, I got my Aurora Monday.  I have 2 usb drives, one powered and one not.  If I plug them into any of the slots in the back I get the safely remove hardware icon, if I plug it into the top left usb it works fine as well.  However if I plug either one of them into the top right usb slot, the computer sees them but I do not get a safely remove hardware icon.  Any ideas?  Do I need a new top i/o?

SOLVED.  I changed the connector from USB2 to USB3 on the motherboard.

I guess this means, something is wrong with my USB2 connection on the motherboard, but since I probably won't ever need it, it's not a big deal.  So It looks like the top left USB corresponds to USB1, top right shipped in USB2 (but wasn't working properly), so now top right is in USB3 (which shipped empty).

So what's in all of them now? USB1, USB2, USB3