Rather than clicking on the task bar and then safely removing the pendrive you can eaily do so creating a shortcut:

THE STEPS ARE

1)Create shortcut on your desktop by right click and selecting new shortcut from the menu.

2)Type "RunDll32.exe

Stop Virus entering USB Drive

Friends... If you have windows XP with SP2,
then you can disable the writing option to USB drives.

WHAT IT WILL DO?

This trick is very useful if you have virus in your computer and want to copy files from a USB Drive but don’t want to transfer virus to the USB.

STEPS to disable the USB writing option:

To edit the computer registry,

How to Block USB Drives

a simple registry TRICK TO BLOCK USB drives (do it with care)

This explains how to disable ONLY USB storage devices(flash/Jump/external HD's) completely without disabling keyboards, mice, etc.

I decided to go this route after trying every other option I could find on the internet. So far this is the only way I have found to completely kill USB drives without ways to get around restrictions. edit: WITHOUT PURCHASING THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE ...