Blue Screen of Death

[fallingrock]

I plugged a USB external hard drive into a friend's Dell portable USB port. His system shut donw and it took some time to get it up and running again. However, both of his USB ports are now disfunctional. I then plugged the same external USB hard drive into my Dell desktop and it immediately went to the blue screen of death: "Your computer has been shut down to prevent damage"...the error events looked like memory addresses. Any ideas about what is going on here? The USB drive has behaved normally for a month, and it may or maynot be the culprit. Ever heard of USB ports being rendered unusable? I feel like crap for screwing up my friend's portable and don't trust plugging the external into anything but a wall socket. Clues? Experience? Guesses about this?

 

[micker377]

Did the same thing to a good SOYO RAID mobo about a year ago, plugged in a peripheral and the system re-booted (Win 98). Now I use the motherboard for a test setup when I don't need USB. I don't know why (plug and pray?). The reader works OK, and never had anymore problems with it. USB is supposed to be "hot-swappable", but I sometimes wonder - why do they have to be "shut down" before removing? I got into the habit of shutting down (stand-by), before removing any peripheral.