Safely remove hardware

[Guest]

Hello,
Does anyone know if using 'Safely Remove Hardware' can itself corrupt/destroy an external hard drive?
I just received my Samsung Story 1.5Tb HD today and copied a couple of files onto it to check it's compatible with my PS3.
Fyi, I've got 2 other exernal drives (one of which is about 2 years old) that I've never used 'Safely Remove Hardware' on and have never had problems.
After reading the posts in this forum though, I thought it'd be best to remove the new hard drive 'safely'..
It is now essentially a brick; it won't even switch on, plus I replaced the fuse (just in case).

Any help/ suggestions are greatly appreciated,
Thanks in advance,

Craig

 

[sminlal]

USING "safely remove hardware" can't really do anything to harm a drive.

NOT USING it could corrupt a file or potentially the file system itself if you happen to unplug it at the wrong time.

I've seen some scenarios in which a USB glitch would prevent a drive from being recognized until you reboot the system - that would be the first thing to try.

 

[Guest]

Hey sminlal,

Cheers for the reply.

It seems to be a hardware problem though, as it doesn't appear to boot up and the standby LED on the hard drive doesn't light.

I'm hoping this was just a faulty unit, as I'd like to get it replaced to use as a back-up drive, but don't want to risk it randomly dying in the near future.

It's just pretty coincidental that after using 'Safely Remove Hardware' for the first time, with a new external drive that appeared to work, it now won't boot up lol.

I'll just send it back anyway, not sure whether to get it replaced though..

Craig