is harmful to remove HDD.........??

[ahmed osama]

IS IT harmfull to remove HDD while it is running

(I mean unplug its IDE and power cable) in our normal PC not server??

if it is harmfull ------->> So why?? what can happened??


does it depends on OS (win98 or 2000 or XP or NT)

 

[Cortex]

i have tryed one time to remove power
and the harddisk never worked again

 

[FoxyRick]

Unplugging the power cable with the data cable still in (and the PC powered of course) is not wise.

The chips on the HD will now not have a power supply, but will be getting voltage levels on their input pins - not a good situation - current might go in unintended directions and let out the magic smoke.

I would guess that unplugging the data cable first might be survivable electronically, you are just removing signals, but might cause the PC to crash if it tries to communicate with the HD.

Removing the power cord second is still a problem - which will break first, 5V or 12V - this could again cause problems of some parts being powered while others are not (motor turn on/off circuits).

This is the issue of "hot-plugging". USB connectors get around this by having the power connectors longer than the data connectors, so the power is always applied before (and removed after) the data signals.

Personally, I'm not going to experiment with this.

FoxyRick.

 

[Cortex]

no
as FoxyRick said , i tested
if you unplug Power , the board will reaceive a shoch
i highly recommand you to buy a USB rack for HDD

 

[eda_surfer]

Yes it is harmful.

When you unplug the power, the moving head of the HDD experiences a jerk and it is most likely to currupt the data. The corruption may be, but usually not, upto the level not recoverable.

If HDD is run without data cable but with power ON, then probably there wouldn't be any harm to the data. However removing the data cable while HDD is running may again corrupt the HDD.

And to answer OS dependany, yet this does depend upon the OS being used as it OS that is controlling the HDD operation through drivers.

You should always poweroff before removing the power cable or the data cable from the HDD , otherwise you are at risk of losing data or your hard disk in the worst case.

 

[asit]

There are hot swappable HDD bays available. Search if you can find one for IDE (I've seen SCSI ones)

 

[sathishkrishna]

Ofcourse its not harmull.... ones the harddisk is removed... nothing is lost
but on windows the OS will be cheking the devices continuously so system will stop functioning.. the only way then is to restart the system.

 

[hill]

remove the power, connector etc while it's running?

My advice, never try that!

 

[pisoiu]

Remember that removing the power by pulling the connector out is not the same like powering off the PSU. A normal power off means main capacitor (primary) discharge down to a level where the PSU cannot work anymore, the circuits will be powered off, and the secondary capacitor will discharge through its load, for all voltages. The voltage will go to 0, nice and fast, all these with a stable ground.
But when you pull out the connector, which pin will break the contact first? GND, +5 or +12v? Don't count on the case GND, this can be more or less stable. You'll never know. This will generate transient signals which can be deadly for HDD and also for mainboard in some cases. Pulling out the connector is like switching on or off a switch, the waveform is not a nice low-to-high or high-to-low (logic like), due to mechanical vibrations. My advice, don't try it, only if you are prepared for new purchases.

/pisoiu

 

[muddasserniaz]

i tried it with swapable bay ... although hdd itself was working .. all the data was lost... had to low level format it.

 

[bamdad]

Powering of HDD's with large (8MB) data caches, will almost certainly cause the data to be lost, and in case of non-fault-tolerant file systems like EXT2 or FAT32, the data loss can be quite severe...

disconnecting the power, while the interface is plugged, might cause some sort of latchup in highspeed inputs, be ware that powering off the PSU, will shut down the disk, and the data interface almost simultaneously, but the rotating disks have to brake, which is done by some sort of regenrative brake mechanism, this will provide some good power to the disk logic even after the data interface is shut down.

the disk controller has to be "hot pluggable" to aviod such damage.

.b

 

[freewilly30]

ya it destroy the hard disk

 

[m00n]

why would anyone do it anyway??

 

[throwaway18]

Under linux, you can stop a drive with hdparm and you may get away with unplugging the IDE cable with the computer on but it's risky. If there is another drive on the same IDE cable there might be problems with the other drive.

I'v crashed a computer by accidentally plugging a power cable into a harddrive while the computer was on. I suspect the surge current drawn to charge the capacitors in the drive pulled the voltage down.

 

[magnetra]

That is probably the last thing you would want to do with you HDD.
Reg,
mag

 

[bamdad]

HDPARM only stops the logical interface on the software layer, since the IDE harddisk cannot be "powered off" by its command interface, but SCSI disks can. The HDPARM can force the entire disk cache to be flushed to disk, thus the file system would remain intact, but what about the electronics? keep in mind that they are still runnning.

 

[devennan]

Well I have a mixed experience, since i have worked on chip Level repairs

Some time It got dammaged and some time it worked like nothing was done to it
but that is how the electronics devices are

the technical side is that when you are removing the power conector from the rear (back) of the Hard Disk you can not guess if
the Ground GND is out first or the (5v,12v) red yellow wire is ditached
but if the GND is detached first then the hardisk will most often get killed as the return path of the current is not there it burns the flat yellow capacitor and the only the PCB is DEAD not the Media

the more I say the more you get confused but if you feel That i have helped or can help remember the HelpME button

Regards
dEVEN

 

[hermin]

theres a reason why Windows calls it "fixed drive". It shouldnt be removed whenever the pc is on. If you do, hope that there wont be anything complicated problems happening. In my experience, because of loose IDE cables and power cables, data is corrupted and created bad sectors. So I recommend you dont unplug them when the PC is on already.

 

[sshahid47]

hi,
i see two problems with removing your hard drive while the pc is running.
1. the operation of disk may fail
2. the OS may not be able to mount it

how ever if you pc is not switched on, i dont see any issue in removing the hard disk.