[D_Dorshimer]

I need to setup the situation before I can ask the question...please forgive
me for a lengthly post.

Recently I was working on a computer for a client who had "lost" the users
from the welcome screen. When the drive was pulled from the system, all of
the programs, and user files were still resident on the drive but there was
no way to log into windows (XP-Home). After about 5 days of beating my head
on this system to find a solution, I just backed off the data that was
important to the client and started with a fresh load.

After reloading Windows, I noticed that the HDD appeared in the "Safely
Remove Hardware" dialogue when I went to remove my Gizmo. I think that the
drive was a "hot swap" capable drive from Maxtor (SATA).

Here is my question:

If the drive were to be accidently "removed" from the system through the
savely remove hardware, and then the system shutdown, could this cause the
user corruption that I saw?

The system is no longer in my office, but any insite into this problem would
be great so that I can educate the customer about how to avoid this in the
future.

Thanks.