Will this damage my Hard drive?

Conrad11 · 21 Jan 2006 at 18:52

Hi there,

I have one of these Hard drive enclosure things:

I have a Seagate 20GB Hard Drive in there.

I was wondering if plugging it in and taking it out whilst the computer is on would be harmful to it?

Thanks

michael baxter · 21 Jan 2006 at 18:59

Yes it could, unless it has been designed to do so.

I'm assuming it is a PATA drive, and as such the IDE interface was never designed to support hot swapping, in so far as I understand. Although, if it was mounted in a external USB case, you can hot swap........

If Fred_or_Dead is about, he may have comment, as he has a good knowledge of disk subsystems.

me227 · 21 Jan 2006 at 19:07

Not sure on the damage it would do if any. But I know the HDD aren't designed for it so don't think it would be best to do.

Humey · 21 Jan 2006 at 19:16

Conrad11 · 21 Jan 2006 at 21:47

Hi there,

Thanks for the responses.

So its best I get an Enclosure for the HDD which makes it Hot Swappable.....right?

Thanks

VeNT · 22 Jan 2006 at 19:05

no, I'd recomend using a USB enclosure for that, but if its SATA then you can how swap them

basmic · 22 Jan 2006 at 19:41

If it's SATA, I'm 99% that you can hot-swap the hard-drives. Definitely so if it's USB.

If it's IDE then I wouldn't think about hot-swapping.

VeNT · 22 Jan 2006 at 21:41

tbh not all SATA chips support hot swap, RTM!