Using Flash Drives Properly

I received a flashdrive (2GB) for Christmas. I've never used one before. My computer appears to recognize immediately when this drive is plugged into the USB port. My question: is it OK to plug the drive in or unplug the drive while my computer is running? Or does that hurt the system in any way? I ask because after taking the drive out today I had a window indicating I should have gone to control panel/remove hardware and do something there before taking the drive out. Any comments would be appreciated as always.

Hi, Yes with Win 2k, you should click the icon "safely remove hardware" and "Stop it" in the notification area before removing the drive, this will then tell you in a second or two that it is OK to remove it, Just pulling it out, without doing this first can cause system instability and or loss of data on your flash drive. The same situation should be followed with Xp but a lot of folks just yank 'em out, but make sure that data is not being written to the flash drive( led's flashing etc) if you follow their example Regards paws

Paws, thank you for your help with this. I figured it would take something extra. So now I know. thanks again

You are more than welcome Regards paws