stew198269

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Mar 30, 2010
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hey guys on my gaming case there is room on top for a sata harddrive but my question is as its out side the case and just looks like an external bay wood i be able to just plug a hard drive straight into it with the computer being on or wood i have to power down everytime i wanna connect hdd to it? any help pls.. thanks stew
 

ngrego

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If the bay connects via eSATA then you can connect whether the PC is on or off.
If it is an internal SATA you would have to shut down to connect.

You could always just connect a drive and give it a try, using a spare drive (with no important data) wont hurt the system or drive.
 

stew198269

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cool cheers was kinda thinking it might short the system out or something but then u was thinking its only like taking out a power lead with out switching off at the plug sort of thing lol
 
Actually it doesn't matter if its ESATA or SATA. They are the same. the controller must be set to AHCI for hotswap to work though.

Is there a power button for the bay? normally I'd want to plug the drive in, then turn on the power, but with it being built into the case, not its own supply it may not have one