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at school we use this contraption a switch of some sort to boot from either one of the hds on the computer or our removable hard drive. what are they called exactly because i want one for my home computer. anyone know what i'm talking about?
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Oct 6th, 2005 12:23 AM #1
ide switcher thing...
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Oct 6th, 2005 04:42 AM #2
Can go into BIOS at power-on & change boot device preference. Not as easy as turning a switch but free!
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Oct 6th, 2005 09:39 AM #3
I never see an IDE switch but I have an idea.
If you connect 2 IDE drives to Channel 1 as Master and Slave, you can add a power switch on the Master drive.
If the Master drive has power when the computer turn on, the machine will boot from the Master drive and you still can access the Slave drive.
If the master drive has no power when the computer turn on, the master drive will not function and the system will both from the Slave drive.
Caution, the power switch should not be touch when the computer is already on. So the above method is pretty risky.
I would suggest the following:
1. If one of the drive is external USB drive, you can set External USB drive as the 1st boot device in the BIOS and the IDE-0 as the second boot device. To boot from the internal IDE drive, you can power off or disconnect the external USB drive when you boot the computer and connect the USB drive after the computer is booted. To boot from the external USB drive, you should power on and connect the USB drive before you boot the computer.
2. use the IDE drawer that you physically plug in the drive that you want to boot. But if you switch the drive very often, the IDE and power connectors inside the drawer may damage very quick.
3. use the Win 2k/XP or Linux build-in boot manager to boot to different OS. The OSs can be on the same drive or different drives. Reply With Quote
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Oct 6th, 2005 09:48 AM #4 Reply With Quote
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Oct 6th, 2005 10:03 PM #5
thx willy yea that's it. now if only i could find something like this at a local store. went to canada computers/best buy/future shop and typed a bunch of strings, and i'm coming up empty. anyone know where i could get this or a product similar to it?
Last edited by NLI10D; Oct 6th, 2005 at 10:23 PM.
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