Eject USB devices

Hello,
on my laptop when I click the 'safely remove hardware' icon, the small window no longer says 'eject' my USB data stick but instead says 'open devices and printers'. I also have tried to safely remove hardware by going to 'Computer' from my desktop, and then right clicking on the removable disk, and then clicking eject, but I don't think this does anything and it remains unsafe to remove the hardware.