Disconnecting USB sub drives
 

To settle an argument,

I need to know if it is safe to remove/change camera cards etc, from a generic card reader which is already plugged into the computer USB port without using the "safely remove hardware" icon?

Just to try and clarify; The reader itself is still plugged in and the 'srh' icon still stays on in the taskbar after the card is removed.

It depends.

If the card is being read or written, you might cause a hiccup. If it's being written, you might lose the data being written.

Otherwise, it's all supposed to be "hot swappable". I've not used the "safely remove hardware" feature in years.

If in, doubt, check: under Windows it's a setting on the drive itself. On the "Policies" tab, it's these settings (in XP):
http://www.zeta-tech.com/eBay/images..._manager_c.gif

With some devices, that dialog will be greyed out and locked at the top option - in other words, Windows knows it's the kind of reader where you can yank the card out at any time. Still, personally, I always try to safely dismount disks: no exceptions. Even if there's no OS-level caching going on, it's still possible that an application is writing to it.

99 times out of 100 you get away with it.

The other time you lose data that's in the write cache and a file or files get corrupted.

Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well do ya? :}

SD

I always try to use the 'safely' bit, but quite often having used the external HD get told that it's still in use, although I stopped using it and closed the accessing program ages ago.

Just switch it off in that case.

As a habit, I always use the safe removal bit when removing directly from the USB port ..... but is it necessary to use the 'srh' icon when you are just removing a card out of the reader?

I had the impression that as long the reader is connected to the USB port it is not necessary to use the safe removal bit while Im fart arseing with the camera card.

bnt; Yes I have XP, am trying to find the policies thingy now.