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A SIMPLE HARD DRIVE SELECTOR:

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Jojo1971

Member
Joined
Feb 23, 2003
Location
MI, USA
switch.jpg


1.) The ideal place for the DPDT switch(in my situation) is somewhere in the back of the case where I can easily reach it but not my kids...

2.) Just make sure that the PC is NOT RUNNING when flipping the switch...In other words, LOG OFF and SHUTDOWN the PC before switching from the current hardrive to the other...

3.) Don't forget to set the BOOT-UP ORDER in the BIOS.. I placed the TWO MAIN HDDs as 1 & 2 in the boot-up order....

4.) I'm using both SATA and IDE HDDs- so far no problem for the last 2 weeks..

5.) My main reason for sharing the idea is that I know A LOT of us are tired of MULTIBOOTING using a single drive/ and getting the Windows installation messed up.. Well, with this setup the 2 OS HDDs are totally independent of each other.. Another advantage is that- only the HDD in use is getting powered...

6.) UP for sticky..lol ..nah.. just wanna share my ideas...
 
SavageBasher said:
and the disadvantage is that you have no way of accessing the other drive. I'll stick with my single os computer with 4 drives.

i believe i posted my reason for making the 2 OS drives totally independent of each other..maybe you should read it again...

and yes- you can reconfigure and be able to let DAD's OS drive access JUNIOR's drive by using the switch only on DAD's drive and by connecting JUNIOR's drive directly in the power connector from the PSU.. Make DAD's drive as # 1 in boot order and JUNIOR's as #2... JUNIOR will never be able to access DAD's drive unless he is able to access the BIOS and change the bootup order.. :)

and yes-you can also make your other slave drives turn on together (and only) with the "switched" drive by splicing their power wires directly into the wires of the "switched drive".. USE your imagination.. it can be useful at times..
 
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ummmmm why... i mean its a cool idea... but most mobos now adays have the ability to select which hd or cdrom to boot from first... HECK my discontinued IC7-G has the ability to do that.... and if you mess ur windows install up by installing another os to a different partition then ur just a nub... if you skrew up ur windows install by trying to install a different OS to the same partition well then ur just plain retarded.
 
its a freakin switch that you can pick up and solder up it doesnt take a genius to figure it out and it really has no purpose... sorry to say but its quite lame.
 
nd4spdbh2 said:
its a freakin switch that you can pick up and solder up it doesnt take a genius to figure it out and it really has no purpose... sorry to say but its quite lame.


looking at your rig, it looks like you got nothing and you got nothing to lose.. i got alot of important files in my big drives... i have to find a way to protect them while sharing my main PC...

you may not benefit from it but some other members will... your post doesn't benefit anyone in our forum....pls stop wasting the bandwidth with your LAME comments...
 
-

If Dad's rig is quite powerful, other "soft" approach is using virtualisation such as VMware or MS Virtual PC (fyi, it is totally free as beer now).

So even Junior's OS or system got screwed, or heavily infected by viruses, spywares or worst zapped the SYSTEM32 folder by accident :bang head :rolleyes: , just cry out loud and Dad just need to restore the fresh virtualisation image again and again, a lot faster than any OS install or drive image restoration.

This "at least" to prevent that curious Junior to tinker with that switch while the puter is on since he/she knows that by peeking when Dad did that, and dad didn't aware that they're "innocently" sitting at those corner pretending playing the toys at the floor !

Never underestimate the power of "curiousity" ! Power spikes during the switching could kills Dad's rig and including the mobo and the Dad's drives too ! :D

my 2 cents
 
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Max0r said:
Have you been able to design a similar switch for hdd interface, sata and/or pata?

No,but I've seen and owned an PATA selector before though. It was made by ROMTEC (discontinued later)... I've experienced glitches with it (most likely due to poor contacts within the multi-pole relay inside it)... I had to get rid of it when I started using SATA drives ...

ROMTEC= switches the PATA interfaces; PC has to be turned off before
switching...

my idea=switches the power connectors; PC has to be turned
off before switching...
 
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but i mean its not all that hard to select a hd from the bios and boot from it and make sure ur not gonna write to it but w/e i just see it as a lame idea... oh and BTW i have about 50gb of important business files on my storage hd thats partition with an install of linux...
 
If you don't want to kill any other drive, then disconnect them while installing... although unless you manually tell linux to format another drive I don't see how it would touch them. Then once installed it shouldn't touch the other drives unless you tell it to.
 
SavageBasher said:
If you don't want to kill any other drive, then disconnect them while installing... although unless you manually tell linux to format another drive I don't see how it would touch them. Then once installed it shouldn't touch the other drives unless you tell it to.

ZACTLY!!! thank you savage.

and if you have 2 ppl using the computer and have 2 different windows installs... why not just get another system to save the hasle.
 
Jojo1971 said:
your post doesn't benefit anyone in our forum....pls stop wasting the bandwidth with your LAME comments...

TRU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lol.

Basically the switch is a quick convenient way to do something that will be done MANY TIMES OVER, instead of having to **** with the damn case. It is best to NOT power on the drive for 2 reasons. A) more run time = more wear time, ESPECIALLY IF IT RUNS HOT. B) When the kid uses the comp, who knows what sort of crazy **** they might do that could affect a powered drive EVEN IF THEY CANT ACCESS THE DATA.

When I was little, I always tinkered with everything via the DOS operating system ever since I learned to read and I ****ED EVERYTHING UP atleast a few times! My dad and his friend have had whole days spent recovering the system because of my antics :)
 
nd4spdbh2 said:
ZACTLY!!! thank you savage.

and if you have 2 ppl using the computer and have 2 different windows installs... why not just get another system to save the hasle.

what hassle??... i find using the switch more convenient and less expensive than the suggestions you have given... you're making things complicated and you're also suggesting unnecessary expense...

WHY MAKE SIMPLE THINGS COMPLICATED? Were you over-educated or UNDER-educated? You have a loose screw somewhere... :confused:
 
OK people, let's all take a deep breath before I have to whip out the Moderator Toolkit™.

While this probably won't be of use to 90% of the people here, that does not negate it's usefulness to the other 10%. Changing the boot order, manually swapping molex connections, and virtualizing a whole PC all have their own place -- just as this switch does. Don't be discounting it's usefulness just because your situation does not merit it's use ;)

JigPu
 
JigPu said:
OK people, let's all take a deep breath before I have to whip out the Moderator Toolkit™.

While this probably won't be of use to 90% of the people here, that does not negate it's usefulness to the other 10%. Changing the boot order, manually swapping molex connections, and virtualizing a whole PC all have their own place -- just as this switch does. Don't be discounting it's usefulness just because your situation does not merit it's use ;)

JigPu


Well said. Great idea while it may not benifit everyone. Now! FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE IT WORK WHILE THE PC IS ON! :D
 
If it wasn't for the OS drive, it probably wouldn't be too hard :D SATA supposedly supports hot-plugging, so there shouldn't be a hardware problem with it. XP caching writes would be the biggest obstacle, unless you want to go through the added step of "safely removing" the drive first (ugggg).

JigPu
 
Heres another idea I saw on The Screensavers. Make a circuit that just selects which drive is master and which one is slave by using a switch. That way you can use all your drives and it doesn't have any real effect on the system if you switch it during operation.

Its essentially a switchable jumper. If you wanted to keep it really simple, just have two DPDTs per HD and configure the jumpers that way.
 
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