Flash Drives

I use my .5 gig flash drive plugged in a USB port. An icon "Safely Remove
Hardware" in my tray says to click on it first then remove the flash drive.
Many times, I just remove it from the USB without doing that process of
"Safely Remove Hardware." What's the purpose of it and will not using it do
any damage to the flash drive files?

--
Dave C.

"Dave C." <c9ar9dar9elli@9c4.n9et> wrote in message
news:4367cabe.0@paperboy.c4.net...
>I use my .5 gig flash drive plugged in a USB port. An icon "Safely Remove
>Hardware" in my tray says to click on it first then remove the flash drive.
>Many times, I just remove it from the USB without doing that process of
>"Safely Remove Hardware." What's the purpose of it and will not using it
>do any damage to the flash drive files?
>
> --
> Dave C.
>
Best to use `safely remove`. MS didn`t put it there for fun.
Two things could possibly happen if you don`t. You could knack your
drive, or, you could blow the USB port. Don`t risk it.
bw..OJ

Dave C. wrote:
> I use my .5 gig flash drive plugged in a USB port. An icon "Safely Remove
> Hardware" in my tray says to click on it first then remove the flash drive.
> Many times, I just remove it from the USB without doing that process of
> "Safely Remove Hardware." What's the purpose of it and will not using it do
> any damage to the flash drive files?
>

A roll of the dice. You may get away with it many times but eventually
snakeyes will turn up and it will probably happen when an important file
is at stake. The purpose of the "safely remove" is to flush the cache to
the device and disable further attempts at access.

--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

:( Just 2 weeks ago, when my school was attacked by Backdoor A virus
on several computers, I left my 512MB in my computer, as usual.
Well, I co-share Technology Coordinator status with one other peer,
so I lost track of my 512MB Cruzer (my peer used it) until the end of
the day, whereas, I could not safely disengage it from my computer. I
thought seriously about shutting down the computer, then remove it;
but, I simply logged off...well, long story made short, I removed it
without shuting down, and now it no longer lights up. So, better be
safe than sorry. And I've used several over the past year and have
been careful, but only one slip up and it's all over. Les.

"Dave C." <c9ar9dar9elli@9c4.n9et> wrote in message
news:4367cabe.0@paperboy.c4.net...
>I use my .5 gig flash drive plugged in a USB port. An icon "Safely Remove
>Hardware" in my tray says to click on it first then remove the flash drive.
>Many times, I just remove it from the USB without doing that process of
>"Safely Remove Hardware." What's the purpose of it and will not using it
>do any damage to the flash drive files?
>
> --
> Dave C.
>

With Windows XP, USB drives default to "Optimize for Quick Removal" as
opposed to "Optimize for Performance." Write caching is only enabled with
performance optimization. So, by default, if you don't remove the device
when data is being transferred (usually there is a light to indicate that),
you should be ok. With write caching enabled, you should stop it first
using the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. That causes the cache to be
flushed out to the USB drive so you can remove it without losing data.

Other versions of Windows might do something slightly different.

Peter