Is it OK to pull out an external hard drive (USB) from a laptop that's running ......?

Answer 1

No, you have to safely remove the hardware by right-clicking on the USB icon.

Answer 2

It depends on the settings for that hard drive. Usually, an external hard drive is set up by windows XP to be non-caching... I.E. the drive doesn't rely on your laptop memory to store the data until it finds a more convenient time to be written to the usb drive. But, in some cases, that checkbox might go the other way. It's great to boost the speed of the drive, but it will become corrupt if you yank it without "safely remove"-ing it. To find out your USB drive's settings, do this:

Plug the drive in
Go to "My Computer"
right click on the drive (or any drive)
click "Properties"
click the "Hardware" tab
find and click your USB drive in the hardware list
click the "Properties" button
cllick the "Policies" tab
you will see 2 options:
Optimize for quick removal and
Optimize for performance
whichever one's checked is the setting for that drive, thus the answer to your question.

Peace!

Answer 3

No, actually it is not. It can harm as much as sudden power failure. When the USB HD is running, its internal disks are rotating thousands of times per minute and disk-heads are pointing at specific locations of the disks. So, suddenly if u power it off it will be forcefully taken to an inconsistent state. Thats not fair.
If u pull out a Floppy-disk when it is running, it will simply crash. But things arent so harsh with USB pen-drive or HD. So, if there is alternative dont do this, otherwise first eject (unmount) it then detach it.

BR//Munna

Answer 4

As long as it's not writing or reading any data (I/O), yes, it's fairly safe to disconnect it if it's on USB.

Assuming you're using Windows 2000, or Windows XP, I would first recommend that you go to the "systray", otherwise known as the System Tray which is all the icons you can locate on the bottom right corner of your screen beside your clock.

Look for the icon that has a green-like arrow. Double-click it. You should have a USB root menu pop up. Click on "Safely remove device" and shut it down first.

But again, you're fairly safe to just disconnect it assuming it's not your operating system disk, or there's no activity on it.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Safely remove hardware... There should be an icon next to the clock on the bottom right. Once you remove the harddrive everything should be good. If you've removed it in the past, and nothing happened, then good. But remove through what I said just incase something on it's running or it's using the space or something...

Answer 6

NO!!! Make sure u properly eject the hard drive by right clicking on the icon next to the clock on ur desk top. Then once ur PC says its safe to remove the hard drive then do so. Or u might loose data or crash ur lap top.

Answer 7

I suppose first that the by running you mean that in that moment you are tranfering files onto it. By pulling it out you will get corupted files and in extreme cases bad sectors on the hard-drive.
The best way would be to unplug it after windows tell you it's ok (unplug hardware wizard - I think is named)

Regards

Answer 8

It shouldn't affect the computer, but it might affect the information and memory of the external hard drive.

Answer 9

never ever do in this way.
whenever you insert removeable media. an icon appears in your right lower corner(safely remove hardware). point to it, and then select your hard drive. this is the safest way to remove usb devices

Answer 10

the best idea...is probably not, as you may pull it out when it's writing data. I'd recommend turning the computer off, or putting it on standby before goin for the unplugged motion.