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remove HDD without shutdown?

My Friend plug his HDD Drive into my pc while windows XP was running and i was surprised, i know that i must shut down the PC First then plug the HDD ?

how did he do that and what are the steps ? and how can i safely remove my slave hard disk without shutdown windows XP ?? can i do that with the safe removal icon?? and where can i get it ?? plz tell me the steps to do this.

many thanks

Pete Long

What HDD was your friend using? was it a USB drive, I suspect yours are IDE drives? Plugging or unplugging anything from the IDE bus while the system is running is more likely to cause damage to the drive/system.

If your system is SCSI then some drives have a "hot plug" system but these are usualy high end server systems (the purple on HP/Compaq componants denotes hot plug) if you want to hot plug an IDe drive I suggest you put it in a USB or FIrewire caddy

Pete

MadTechno

ASKER

no i have an IDE Hard Drive 40 GB Western and my friend plug it to my master Hard drivr while windows is running and when i ask him how did he do that he tell me i must follow these steps :

To plug the IDE HDD :

1- there are must be no active operation running on the pc
2- when plug the HDD first plug the Data cable and then plug the power cable but be carful dont shake the power cable while plug it i mean plug it in direct path.

Then the windows will detect the second HDD.

to unplug the HDD:

follow the same procedurs but first remove the power cable the the data cable and remember don't shake the power cable when removing it couse this may damage the hard disk

wellll...i try this and this work but how can i use the safely removal icon to remove my HDD ???

any other suggestion?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Pete Long

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Timotheus1

Serial ATA devices are hot swap, but Paralell ATA you should not mess with unless the power is off.

MadTechno

ASKER

Thanks Petelong and timotheus1 , i think u both right shutting down the PC is safer than paying more money to buy a new hard disk :D

Pete Long