I just done something daft

[Scott Salisbury]

I'm busy fixing 3 machines at the same time and I needed to swap a CD drive in my brand new system. I power down the machine that I want to swap the drive and remove the old drive. I then, for some unknown reason power the machine up (with no drive).

I go away for 10 mins and I come back and begin plugging in the IDE and the power cables, but hold on... nope it's too late... I've already plugged the cables in (while the PC was on) and I just clean forgot, whoops.

I didn't notice the fans spinning because the system is pushed in the corner as the wires are tight so I just squashed my arm in and because I've got other machines running I didn't hear it on (it runs quiet anyways).

When I half-plugged in the power cable, the whole system juddered for a second as if I just turned the power off but windows was still on and it seems ok.

I just want to know if I could have damaged anything (the mobo or the power etc) by accidently attempting to plug in hardware while the PC is still on. I am planning on leaving this PC on 24/7 as a download box and I don't like the thought of the power supply packing in because I've been an idiot.

Has anyone done this before? Does it cause any damage?

Thanks in advance,
Scott.

 

[Scott Salisbury]

Ah right, there are just 2 SATA hard drives plugged in at the time I done it. The only IDE device is the one I was plugging in, and it appears to be working ok. Its a brand new and not too cheap DVDRW Combo, so I hope it still copies stuff

 

[Scott Salisbury]

I made the same mistake a few years ago with a hard drive. The nice blue spark reminded me that I'd not powered down. I lost both hard drives

Aww that sucks.

Yeah I didn't see any sparks, nor electricute myself. pretty lucky I think. I'm surprised the PC even stayed on and didn't restart or crash.

I'll do some tests on it later.