hot swapping ide drives

[ne0-reloaded]

will treating standard ide drives as hot swappable ruin the drives? i plugged out my dvd and cdrw drives and plugged in a spare hard drive because i didnt feel like shutting down. the hdd was recognized and everything worked ok, but i wasnt sure if doing this over a prolonged period would cause issues.

thanks

 

[jpmkm]

Hot swapping is definitely not in the IDE spec. I wouldn't do it unless absolutely necessary(and I can't imagine a situation when it would be, since hotswapping IDE is pretty much a crapshoot). It might cause physical damage, but chances are it won't. Some funkyness can crop up, though, since it's just not designed to be used that way. With that being said, though, I used to do exactly what you just did back in the day.

 

[Ockie]

You can do it, but it's not made to do it... you can damage your components.

If you want to be lazy, get a hotwap tray for your drives, that will greatly reduce your risk of damaging your components.

 

[ne0-reloaded]

ok i figured it wouldnt be a good idea. just really didnt feel like shuttin down.

thanks