[plug] X and my mouse pointer.

[BillK]

Cards on ide & pci buses are not meant to be removed/reseated live:
1) it is possible to short circuit the contacts if while seating the
card you get slightly off - to the refrain of "smoke gets in your eyes"
2) the cards internals can be zapped because the bus address lines can
be powered up before the actual logic power is stable - doesnt work ever
again
3) Kills (permanently) your motherboard
4) Most cards with onboard processing (and many dumb cards) require a
reset signal before they will go into operational mode, which will only
occur on correct powerup.
5) a glitch on the bus at the wrong time will usually cause some
software to object - usually a crash on dos systems (where I was last
tempted to take such an expensive (as it proved) short cut!

Modern boards are tough, how tough is tough?? Good luck, hope you havent
fried anything permanently!

BillK