I just done something daft

[kona ryan]

So its good practice to go delving into a PC when it's all powered up is it?

You wanna test your electrical immunity - be my guest!

prehaps not with pointy metalic objects, or with big clumbsy hands.
my point is nothing inside your computer (apart from inside the psu) will give you a belt too little potential!! electricity is not some magical force!!

 

[Energize]

Ive done this loads of times, wouldnt worry about it.

 

[PobodY]

Ten years of building pc`s, ive done this myself a couple of times... just keep building it, run it for 24 hours and use it as best you can but i would be willing to put money on it being fine. there pretty tough hell i had a faulty hard drive once and the only thing i could do to wake it up was unplug its power and plug it back in while the system was live lol, never had a problem with the system over all (although i really dont advise that method...)

I was under the impression that damage really only occured when you power down and the drive is still in use - like when it's in the middle of a read and the power goes out.
I've had the platter on a drive ruined like that - and when it has a scratch you just do more damage trying to get the data off!

Don't hot-swapable drives just power-down the unit before allowing you to un-plug it?

12v 1A maximum on the inside of a PC - doesn't do much damage to a person. Just don't mess with the guts of the PSU (unless you know what you're doing).