Why is my External HDD displayed as Internal HDD?

Hello:

Every time I plug in my 1TB external hard drive into my computer, windows 7 treats it as an internal HDD rather than a plug and play device. I'll go to it under My Computer and right click the disk and the option to eject never comes up. I looked up the device under the device manager and wasn't so sure what I was looking for to set it to a plug and play device.

On the same topic every time I do plug in plug and play device and windows 7 registers it as one, it never gives me the option to remove the device safely from my computer through the taskbar. The icon will appear momentarily to tell me that the device is installed and works fine but disappears just as fast as it appeared. The only way for me to eject any type of device is through My Computer and right clicking the device and selecting the option to eject. I've tried customizing the taskbar for options to get it to display but it just doesn't want to show up.

TLDR: External HDD behaves like and Internal HDD & safely remove device option not showing up in taskbar despite checking the customization options on the taskbar.