Removing Internal HDD Without Turning Off PC?

Guitarman0 · 14 Jun 2011 at 22:34

I was just wondering, is it possible to mount/unmount internal HDDs (obviously not the OS drive or any drive with programs running from it) inside windows so you don't have to turn off your PC to remove/insert a drive?

Cheers

Rroff · 14 Jun 2011 at 22:38

Depends in theory a SATA drive in AHCI mode can be hot plugged, but... in practise its a lot more complicated and your more likely to end up with a BSOD or even data corruption than the desired effect.

If its an older IDE drive with a molex power connection I'd avoid attempting it - not normally a problem but I've seen someone try it before resulting in sparks and the drive dying :S probably just a really random one off tho... possibly.

lopkinfop · 14 Jun 2011 at 22:50

yes you can but the drive and motherboard need to be compatable and it doesn't always work. in older MBs i use a program called hotswap http://mt-naka.com/hotswap/index_enu.htm

Guitarman0 · 14 Jun 2011 at 23:05

Thats annoying! I have a GA-790XTA-UD4 using a marvell 9128 chip which that program doesn't support

Thanks anyway.

AbsenceJam · 15 Jun 2011 at 04:44

You can change over to using AHCI (read guides) which will show the drive under safely remove and automatically pick it up when connected again but you don't need to.

Go into device manager, remove the drive and then pull it. If you connect another do scan for hardware changes. I don't know what Rroff is talking about, I've never had anything like that happen.