HD switcher??

[Vagabond]

I seem to remember seeing this somewhere but it was expensive... anyway of making one yourself??

[John Prophet]

http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/CCAM/trios.shtml

Thats an older review, I think there is a newer version out now.

They use something like this at school were I take mcse classes.

The one they use is a little different though...it has a thing sort of like a wired remote that sits on the desktop.

They have it set up with W2k Pro and Redhat..so you shut down..push in the other selector button, reboot into the other OS.

Its called a "Romtec 'Trios' Hard Drive selector"

JP

[Vagabond]

cool txs ill look into it.... but seeing the pics makes me remeber that it is more complex then i was thinking LOL i for got about the ribbon cable....

If i made a switch that turns on and off power to two HD (both set as master on the same ribbon (so only one DH has power at a time) put the switch on the outside of the case
would something like this work??

[John Prophet]

you can easily find out by trying it, lol. Just take the side cover off the machine, put both drives as master and unplug power from one and see what happens.

But I have my doubts...Im not sure about the bios aspect of it. I guess you just set everything in the BIOS to "auto". Maybe you would get a warnng that this or that hard drive cant be found and then you click a key to keep booting.

So maybe it would work after all. Or maybe you would be better to set em both to "cable select"

Try it both ways.

JP

[Vagabond]

txs good idea i will put this to the test this weekend....

[Kuasimodem]

How to build a hard drive switcher:

The Screensavers save the day

[Dazbo666]

That idea is pretty sweeet!! Thanks for the link, Kuasimodem!!
I was planning on getting one of those Trios switches, but I much prefer doing it the ghetto / DIY method.

Gonna have one drive with XP and all my games and music etc, then the other drive with 98SE and my digital pictures and scanner drivers... (cos my scanner is pretty old, and is not XP compatible)

[Vagabond]

txs man ill read the article hopefully i can do this

[Vagabond]

that should be easy enough but i was also thinking of powering down one or the other HD so only one was usable at a time.. security issue i have for something

If set both to master and use a switch or 2 as in the article on the power cables to the drives i may be able to turn one on one off or both on?? think this may work?? i guess this puts be back a few posts above (I just have to try)

[Kuasimodem]

OK, I decided to play with my MS Visio and see if I could design a power switching circuit for ya. Here it is



Set both of the hard drives to cable select on the same cable. Your bios will recognize them with no problems, Windows will recognize the first hard drive it finds as HDD0.