Removing a USB device without "shutting down" is not supposed to cause any physical damage; it's designed that way. That doesn't mean it can never happen -- the design may be faulty and not meet the specifications, or there may be extraordinary circumstances where damage occurs. But USB devices are supposed to be hot-pluggable -- they can be plugged in and unplugged without shutting the system down. Data loss can happen when the computer is merrily tranferring data to the USB memory, without a clue that you're going to pull the plug before the transfer is complete. Doing the "Safely remove..." routine gives the computer a chance to finish. Kraig --- Donna <[email protected]> wrote: > So, is this saying that this is the worst thing that will happen, is > lose of > data? That there is no damage to any of the equipment? > > Thanks, Donna > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Access over 1 million songs - Yahoo! Music Unlimited (http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited)