External Hard drive not showing up on Taskbar

Recently I removed my external hard drive from my computer to use it with my laptop.  Since hooking it back up to my desk top it no longer shows up on the Task Bar and I don't know whether I should remove it from the UBS cable without being able to click on an Icon in the Task Bar letting me know it is OK to remove it without dire consequences.  Does anyone out there have any idea how I can get the Icon back that shows removable hardware on the TaskBar?  The external hard drive seems to be working just fine.

Try this...

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Line 5

02bin3, Very strange! You can continue to use it but the option to safely remove it via the icon is not displayed.I would not remove it now until you can overcome that loss of "safely remove". That is the prevailing concensus of the research i had done some time back. Others have claimed they seldom if ever do it that way and don't have problems. However interupting a removable HDD when in operation by removing it can cause a loss of all data. A couple of things i would suggest. Try another device such as a USB flash drive or whatever and see if it brings up the icon option. The other is shut down your computer with the external still connected and running through the "start" shut down method. Then with the computer off--turn off the power supply on the rear of the external via the toggle switch. Then turn on the computer. After the computer is fully functional then turn the external switch to on and see what happens. If that doesn't restore the icon please refer to this article it provides work around and reintroduction of the icon.let us know what occurs as you work through this. goodluck,truenorth
http://ask-leo.com/safely_remove_hardware_where_did_the_icon_go_how_do_i_safely_remove_hardware_without_it.html

Thank you both for your suggestions.  I did try the Start & Run suggestion but it wouldn't bring up the needed window.  Then I did what I probably should have done before bothering you folks and that was to restart my computer.  Then voila!  There it was......in the TaskBar!  Again, my apologies and thanks for all of you who are so great about helping out.

02bin3, Another success--wonderful.Yes very often simply shutting down and restarting can solve a problem.your welcome,truenorth