my friend accidentally unplugged her external hard drive from her computer while it was still on. does anybody know what's wrong with it now?  

first thing you have to do is plug in the external hard drive again and see whether the system can recognize it. If it is, and can read/write, then there won't be any problems. Usually when your friend unplugged the portable drive when it read/write, then there might be a problem and the files may get corrupted. If it gets damaged, let me suggest you to use: SoftPerfect File Recovery -which is a free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from USB flash drives and other storage media. Get it from: www.softperfect.com/download/f ile_r ecovery.exe
It's always suggested to unplug the device from the taskbar by clicking 'Safely remove hardware' prompt and then unplug it. Also never remove your external drive while the file operation (read/write) occurs.

Answered by Gyan Singh at 7:14 PM on July 16, 2008

first thing you have to do is plug in the external hard drive again and see whether the system can recognize it. If it is, and can read/write, then there won't be any problems. Usually when your friend unplugged the portable drive when it read/write, then there might be a problem and the files may get corrupted. If it gets damaged, let me suggest you to use: SoftPerfect File Recovery -which is a free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from USB flash drives and other storage media. Get it from: www.softperfect.com/download/f ile_r ecovery.exe
It's always suggested to unplug the device from the taskbar by clicking 'Safely remove hardware' prompt and then unplug it. Also never remove your external drive while the file operation (read/write) occurs.

Answered by Anju Singh at 6:26 PM on July 16, 2008

first thing you have to do is plug in the external hard drive again and see whether the system can recognize it. If it is, and can read/write, then there won't be any problems. Usually when your friend unplugged the portable drive when it read/write, then there might be a problem and the files may get corrupted. If it gets damaged, let me suggest you to use: SoftPerfect File Recovery -which is a free and useful tool to restore accidentally deleted files from USB flash drives and other storage media. Get it from: www.softperfect.com/download/f ile_r ecovery.exe
It's always suggested to unplug the device from the taskbar by clicking 'Safely remove hardware' prompt and then unplug it. Also never remove your external drive while the file operation (read/write) occurs.

Answered by jaivir at 6:33 PM on July 15, 2008

accidental power loss, it will be replaced by the company if its in warranty and ur data will be recovered !!

Answered by at 3:13 PM on July 14, 2008

firstly..is there a problem?? because your question does not tell whats the problem..it just says that the power cable was unplugged. if so...usually it does not create any problem.. but if it happens everytime ( i.e)u remove power cord without switching it off ) it can get corrupted or also may not power on.

Answered by taruneet at 8:32 PM on July 13, 2008

Usually unplugging an external while its on is relatively safe unless something writing at the time it was turned off. That would create errors with whatever was open or, worst case, if the directory structures were messed up, it would power on but be unreadable.
That normally doesn't stop it from being turned on. That sound more like, if it was unplugged from the back of the drive unit somewhat violently, it could have shorted or damaged the power connection.
The drive and/or data could be ok.
Take it somewhere. Here are the possibilities.
It might be as simple as a fuse in the power supply or the power connection to the drive unit(best case).
It could be something in the enclosure/case is too fried but the drive itself is ok. They sell empty enclosures and the drive can be simply put in a new enclosure. New enclosers run anywhere from $30 on up (don't go too cheap)
If components on the drive itself fry, well, the data is probably still on the platters and recoverable but that's an expensive operation.

Answered by priyanka at 10:12 PM on July 04, 2008

Usually unplugging an external while its on is relatively safe unless something writing at the time it was turned off. That would create errors with whatever was open or, worst case, if the directory structures were messed up, it would power on but be unreadable.
That normally doesn't stop it from being turned on. That sound more like, if it was unplugged from the back of the drive unit somewhat violently, it could have shorted or damaged the power connection.
The drive and/or data could be ok.

Answered by banish at 6:56 PM on July 04, 2008

Nothing would happens but if u have unplugged it while data transaction there might be loss of data thats it. There wont be any damage to it .

Answered by shaista at 11:02 AM on July 04, 2008