Yes someone did, and they made it happen. Some programmers have made a program that will allow you to hot swap any SATA connected device just like disconnecting a flash drive. It works with Windows XP and up, and is very cool.

This software is designed based on the information Knowledge Base Article #10744 - SATA: Hot Plugging Drives under Win2000/XP (Internet Archive) provided by Silicon Image, and in order to make Serial ATA (SATA) drives are easy to hot swap.

Basically it does the same thing as you can remove devices from Device Manager, but the user interface is much friendly as compatible with the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the notification area and it is much safer as it prevents the drive being removed if the drive is in use. With this software, you can use SATA/eSATA drives as even better removable drives than USB/IEEE1394 drives.

Very cool in my opinion visit the official Hot Swap website here and get this useful program that I am sure many people can make good use of.

[via Hot Swap!]