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Originally Posted by symphonix  Ummmm, well no, you're really not supposed to do that. There is a very real risk of corrupting the data on the thumb drive, regardless of whether you are on Mac or Windows. On Windows, you should still unmount USB drives using the "Safely remove hardware" icon in the system tray. |
I second what symphonix is saying. No matter what the OS, you still have to "safely remove" the USB flash disk. WIndows even tells you when you disconnect it without unmounting it (aka, the "Safely Remove" option) that you run the risk of corrupting your data. Much of the writing is done during the unmounting process on USB flash drives, so removing it without unmounting it first will surely bring undesirable effects.
I don't know how many times I've had people who were working on documents right from their USB drive, saved the file, and improperly removed the drive say that they couldn't believe that they lost the file when trying to pull it up from another computer. Usually, it's because of the improper unmounting.