hot swapping

[MidNiteMysT]

i like to back up my hard drive occasionally by just taking the most important files. ide like to use norton ghost but its on floppy and i didnt install my floppy drive, so i cant get access to it lol. ide like to transfer the prog to maybe my usb flash drive or something. but anyway....

is it ok to unplug the hard drive while the computer is still on? its a sata drive. what would be the proper technique? take out power first, then then sata cable. is that ok to do? or just power down and take it out? and do you guys flip the power suppy switch to off before removing things like a hard drive? usually i dont

Thanks

 

[CalvinHobbes]

The SATA drive may show up as a removeable drive in the system tray. If it does you could shut it down like any other device and then disconnect it.

 

[MidNiteMysT]

i think it shows up as a hard drive. so in that case, that would be no right?