Can you remove just one USB drive from the Safely Remove list?

The title says it all. I have a USB external hard drive for backups and frequently use USB thumb drives for other stuff and I have occasionally clicked the wrong one when ejecting one of the thumb drives.

Is it possible to remove just the external hard drive from the list that appears when you click the taskbar's Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media button? Or maybe require a password or something to eject it?
I know I could eliminate that button and just eject them via Windows Explorer but I'd rather not.

That's fine as long as you are absolutely sure the drive isn't being written to or from. I prefer to use the button to make sure that isn't happening.

Agree. I too prefer to use the eject button.

1. What if you (or your spouse) has changed the policy for one of your umpteen external drives to "Better Performance" from the new default of "Quick Removal"?

2. What if a large file is still being copied and you have minimized the progress bar or brought another window forward? Here you won't notice the drive is not done.

Yanking a drive without thinking is not a good plan and its a lot easier to remember to think while going for the eject button.

Check the "Safely remove" policy for that specific device.
Control panel>Devices and printers,left click the icon,then RIGHT click to open the context menu.
Select ---hardware---in the bottom box,select "properties"
Expand the properties box and and scroll down to---Safe Removal Required----and select it.
The value will either be "True" or "False".
If still in doubt,check with the device manufacturer.
If still unsure,play safe and only remove after shutdown.

OK, I couldn't see hardware in the menu that appeared when I right clicked the icon so I clicked Properties. In the Properties window I selected the Hardware tab and there was a list marked Device Functions with 3 entries:
Name Type
WD Elements 2620 Portable Devices
USB Mass Storage Device Universal Serial Bus controllers
WD Elements 2620 USB Device Disk drives

If I click the Properties button with any of those selected I eventually find a Details tab where I see a box marked Property with Device description displayed and when I click that a list appears that I can scroll down to to find Safe Removal Required.
When I select Safe Removal Required in the first 2 it says <false>
When I select Safe Removal Required in WD Elements 2620 USB Device it says <true>

What should I do now?

Re only removing after shut down, I seldom shut my computer down and I don't plan to remove the backup drive very often so that isn't an issue.
My concern is with accidentally clicking the backup drive when I intend to eject a thumb drive and I don't want to shut the computer down every time I copy something to a thumb drive.

You can go to File Explorer, right click on the drive you want to eject and eject it that way as well.

I know that but as I said before I would rather not do it that way if I don't have to.

The only way I know to do that, is to install a filter driver Like DiskMod and make your USB drive appear as a Fixed Disk.

You must firstly left click on the icon to select it,then right click on the selection to bring up the context menu.
If that does not happen,the operating system has corrupted files,Use ---sfc---and ---dism---to correct it.
Also check Device manager>Disk drives and if the device shows in the expansion,left click to select,right click for the menu,giving Properties>Policies tab.
Choose whichever option suits your requirements.