I was trying to fix my Dad’s PS3 (he recently passed away) nothing was working, so I connected the HDD from the PS3 into my PC. Upon plugging in the SATA cable, the entire PC shut off. I unplugged the HDD, but now when I power on the PC, the fans just run at max speed and nothing else happens. I don’t know how to troubleshoot this problem.
Wait did you plug in cables with the power still on ?
Sata is hot swap. There’s even cases with a sata bay on the top. I had one like 10 years ago and it was amazing.
Yeah I knew Esata could hotswap and motherboards with that can but not all motherboards are configured to have hot swap enabled the main problem is the power connector in a non Esata drive or without an enclosure plugging in a sata cable can jiggle the power cable and short something on a rare occasion.
Sata data doesn’t do enough power to cause any damage to itself. Serial data lines don’t care if you short them. Sata power has grounds in the way so you can’t send 5v to 3.3v or 12v to 5v.
You’ll break the sata cable before you cause any damage to your computer (ask me how I know)
Technically, most are hot plug. The SATA (not just eSATA) specs were designed from the beginning to allow it. That’s why the different pins (fingers) are different lengths. For it to be compliant with the spec, it must be ok to connect/disconnect while the power is live.