PC Cards Hot-Pluggable?

shutdown first!!

I had a bad experience I unplugged a card and it shorted out the power supply so I scrapped the comp for parts.

PCMCIA should be hotpluggable.

Should be.

Yes, PCMCIA cards are normally hot pluggable. HOWEVER, that does not mean you can rip them out whenever you feel like it. The first time you insert a PCMCIA card you''ll get a "new hardware" dialog (if it needs its own drivers you''ll have to provide them at this point). After that whenever you insert the card it will automatically show up (depending on your configuration you may have a "beep" which confirms that a card has been inserted). What is important (and what can cause instability, crashes, errors, and the remote change of hardware damage from shorts) is that you must shutdown the card before removing it. In Windows you''ll see a little icon on the task tray (in Windows 2000 it looks like a green arrow above a PCMCIA card). Double click it (or right click and select from the menu) to get a window showing you a list of all hotswappable components connected to your system (PCMCIA cards, certain USB devices, etc). Select the item you want to shutdown and click stop. After a second or two it should say the device has been removed/shutdown and that it is safe to physically remove it.