Windows 7: I unplugged my external hard drive without "Safely Remove" Can this da

If policies are set to quick removal for the drive, which is mos likely the case for a USB external drive, boobbah is most certainly right. If right-through caching is enabled it is highly unlikely that anything would happen to the drive by unplugging without ejecting.
"Quick removal
This option is usually the best choice for devices that you are likely to remove from the system frequently, such as USB flash drives, SD, MMC, Compact Flash, or similar memory cards, and other externally attached storage.

"When you select the Quick Removal option, Windows manages commands sent to the device using a method called write-through caching. In write-through caching, the device operates on write commands as if there were no cache. The cache may still provide a small performance benefit, but the emphasis is on treating the data as safely as possible by getting the commands to the principal storage. The main benefit is that you can remove the storage device from the system quickly without risking data loss. For example, if a flash drive were to be accidentally pulled out of its port, the data being written to it is much less likely to be lost." From windows help.

Hope this is useful.

Cheers,

J