Is it safe to unplug a hard drive while the pc is on?

[yash sharma]

I was just wondering if my PC was running, and i unplug the data cable going to my hard drive, will it do damage? My PC kept crashing and I think it might be the hard drive. The light turns off and when i force shut it down, it doesn't make a noise like it usually does. If it's safe to unplug it, then I'll try it.

[emosun]

it would be better to start a thread about the crashing and let people figure out why the machine is crashing instead.

as for the hdd question so long as it's usb its hot plugable. i know sata is supposed to be hot plugable but i get mixed results

[Wolly9102]

5 minutes ago, yash sharma said:

I was just wondering if my PC was running, and i unplug the data cable going to my hard drive, will it do damage?

Yes. How to kill you hard drive 101.

[yash sharma]

2 minutes ago, emosun said:

it would be better to start a thread about the crashing and let people figure out why the machine is crashing instead.

as for the hdd question so long as it's usb its hot plugable. i know sata is supposed to be hot plugable but i get mixed results

I did like 2 threads, but i didn't get any help lol.

[yash sharma]

3 minutes ago, Wolly9102 said:

Yes. How to kill you hard drive 101.

Will it die even if i just unplug the data cable and not the power cable?

[yash sharma]

7 minutes ago, Wolly9102 said:

Yes. How to kill you hard drive 101.

Also if the power goes out or I force shit it down, then basically the same thing is happening.

[Lennart van de Merwe]

14 minutes ago, yash sharma said:

I was just wondering if my PC was running, and i unplug the data cable going to my hard drive, will it do damage? My PC kept crashing and I think it might be the hard drive. The light turns off and when i force shut it down, it doesn't make a noise like it usually does. If it's safe to unplug it, then I'll try it.

As a general rule of thumb, do not disconnect anything inside the PC as long as it's one and/or plugged into the wall.

[Lennart van de Merwe]

1 minute ago, yash sharma said:

Also if the power goes out or I force shit it down, then basically the same thing is happening.

Yes, that's why you really shouldn't want a power outage while your PC is on and directly plugged into the wall.

When you force a shutdown it is actually a bit more gracefull as far as I'm aware.

[Stormseeker9]

3 minutes ago, Lennart van de Merwe said:

Yes, that's why you really shouldn't want a power outage while your PC is on and directly plugged into the wall.

 

As long as you don’t have any HDD’s and a good psu you should in general be fine I believe 

[yash sharma]

8 minutes ago, Lennart van de Merwe said:

As a general rule of thumb, do not disconnect anything inside the PC as long as it's one and/or plugged into the wall.

I have a power strip, I dunno if that makes a difference.

 

[yash sharma]

I have an extra hdd should i try it on there? Will it damage the rest of my pc?

[yash sharma]

Also when my pc would crash, then sometimes the power button wouldn't work so i'd have to use the switch on the psu to turn it off.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, yash sharma said:

Also when my pc would crash, then sometimes the power button wouldn't work so i'd have to use the switch on the psu to turn it off.

Again , you should make a thread about this as it has nothing to do with the hard drive then.

the board is specifically making sure you dont try to turn the machine back on again.

[Turtle Rig]

40 minutes ago, yash sharma said:

I was just wondering if my PC was running, and i unplug the data cable going to my hard drive, will it do damage? My PC kept crashing and I think it might be the hard drive. The light turns off and when i force shut it down, it doesn't make a noise like it usually does. If it's safe to unplug it, then I'll try it.

Hot Swappable yes, but just unplug it while it is runing is stupid to do you will mostly probably lose it all then it breaks.

[yash sharma]

20 minutes ago, emosun said:

Again , you should make a thread about this as it has nothing to do with the hard drive then.

the board is specifically making sure you dont try to turn the machine back on again.

No, I made this thread because i'm pretty sure that the hard drive keeps shutting off so if I try to see if it's true by unplugging it.

[emosun]

you can check if a hard drive is on simply by accessing it , unplugging it isn't going to show any sort of result

[yash sharma]

9 minutes ago, emosun said:

you can check if a hard drive is on simply by accessing it , unplugging it isn't going to show any sort of result

I put windows on the drive, but after like 10 mins it shuts off. If I unplug it, then it's gonna simulate what's been happening to the pc when it crashes so I can be sure it's the hdd and not something else.

[emosun]

2 minutes ago, yash sharma said:

I put windows on the drive, but after like 10 mins it shuts off. If I unplug it, then it's gonna simulate what's been happening to the pc when it crashes so I can be sure it's the hdd and not something else.

that would be a great idea if there was not hundreds of things that can make a computer turn off

"well my car kept shutting off so the i drove it into the ocean to see if it would shut off again"

[yash sharma]

But there's things that indicate that the hdd is shutting off like the light doesn't come on while the pc crashes and is still on. It also makes a noise a few secs after it crashes which is the same sound it makes when i shut down the pc. Those things are leading me to think that it's the hdd. I wanted to unplug it to see if the exact things will happen when I unplug it.

41 minutes ago, emosun said:

that would be a great idea if there was not hundreds of things that can make a computer turn off

"well my car kept shutting off so the i drove it into the ocean to see if it would shut off again"