isolating new clone drive for 1st bootup
 

As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...

As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

Its not a great idea, plenty of systems dont like having
a drive thats not getting power on the ribbon cable much.

It is a kludge that does sort of work tho, and thats
what quite a few removable drive bay systems do.

If the drives are on different IDE channels, you can disable the original's
channel in BIOS - Integrated Periphs. Setting the drive type to NONE does not
work.

Most of my newer IDE devices can have their power unplugged and not affect
other system operation.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

"Rod Speed" wrote:

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

Its not a great idea, plenty of systems dont like having
a drive thats not getting power on the ribbon cable much.

It is a kludge that does sort of work tho, and thats
what quite a few removable drive bay systems do.


I guess it's worth a try, then. The more I get into
cloning HDs, the more I see how Microsoft put obstacles
in the way of cloning by making it a hassle.

*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ...
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

Its not a great idea, plenty of systems dont like having
a drive thats not getting power on the ribbon cable much.

It is a kludge that does sort of work tho, and thats
what quite a few removable drive bay systems do.

I guess it's worth a try, then.

Yeah, it mostly does work.

The more I get into cloning HDs, the more I see how Microsoft
put obstacles in the way of cloning by making it a hassle.

Basically because MS assumes that cloning will only be
done much when replacing the boot drive and that having
to unplug the original for the first boot after the clone is
pretty much a non issue when upgrading the drive etc.

There are other approaches like image files
that work fine if you're cloning for backup etc.

My motherboard BIOS has an IDE Configuration
setting, and that might be a way to turn off 2 HDs
by turning off one IDE channel, but... my HDs are
on a SIIG controller card - whose BIOS is an
undocumented unknown. Thanks for the info, though.

*TimDaniels*


"Eric Gisin" wrote:
If the drives are on different IDE channels, you can
disable the original's channel in BIOS - Integrated Periphs.
Setting the drive type to NONE does not work.

Most of my newer IDE devices can have their power
unplugged and not affect other system operation.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

Or better yet just pick the drive to boot too in your BIOS.

Dan

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

Angry American
wrote in message ...

Or better yet just pick the drive to boot too in your BIOS.

Doesnt work when cloning the boot drive in the NT/2K/XP family.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

It does if you choose and isolate the particular drive. As long as the boot
files are on the root, it will work.

Dan

Rod Speed wrote:
Angry American
wrote in message ...

Or better yet just pick the drive to boot too in your BIOS.

Doesnt work when cloning the boot drive in the NT/2K/XP family.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

Angry American
wrote in message ...

It does if you choose and isolate the particular drive.

Nothing like what you said. He was talking
about HOW you isolate the original boot drive,
not how you select which drive to boot off.

As long as the boot files are on the root, it will work.

Not if you dont make the original boot drive invisible to
the OS for the first boot after the clone has been made.


Rod Speed wrote:
Angry American
wrote in message ...

Or better yet just pick the drive to boot too in your BIOS.

Doesnt work when cloning the boot drive in the NT/2K/XP family.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having un-powered
electronics connected to your bus is generally a sure-fire way to drag
the bus down to nothing. This is why hot-swap devices, whether they
are USB or whatever, have connectors that ensure that the power is
applied before the signals are connected.

"chrisv" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing. This is
why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB or whatever,
have connectors that ensure that the power is applied before
the signals are connected.


I was *not* asking about a hot-swap wherein the
logical state of the drive would be undefined when
powered was applied by virtue of the signal cables
being pre-connected. I *was* asking about doing the
switching ON/OFF of power cables while the PC was
shut down. This would be logically equivalent to physically
connecting and disconnecting the power cables to various
HDs by opening the case, etc. I know this works in
some configurations - single HDs on separate channels -
because I've done it. That is, just disconnecting the
power cable of one HD allows the other HD (on the
other IDE channel) to boot up in isolation.

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered? If the Slave were unpowered and the Master
powered? If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc.,
etc. Assuming that the signals "see" a high input impedance at
the HD's circuit card, I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference
to the channel controller whether the circuitry of the card were
powered on unpowered, i.e. at boot-up, the BIOS would not
see the unpowered device, and the IDE controller wouldn't
try to talk to it, and the dead circuit card's high input impedance
would not drain signals passing by it.

*TimDaniels*

"chrisv" wrote in message ...
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing.

It does work most of the time with removable drive bays.

This is why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB
or whatever, have connectors that ensure that the
power is applied before the signals are connected.

Nope, thats for a completely different reason. And
what they do is ensure that GROUND is connected
first on insertion and disconnected last on removal.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ...

"chrisv" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing. This is
why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB or whatever,
have connectors that ensure that the power is applied before
the signals are connected.


I was *not* asking about a hot-swap wherein the
logical state of the drive would be undefined when
powered was applied by virtue of the signal cables
being pre-connected. I *was* asking about doing the
switching ON/OFF of power cables while the PC was
shut down. This would be logically equivalent to physically
connecting and disconnecting the power cables to various
HDs by opening the case, etc. I know this works in
some configurations - single HDs on separate channels -
because I've done it. That is, just disconnecting the
power cable of one HD allows the other HD (on the
other IDE channel) to boot up in isolation.

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

The short story is that there doesnt need to be
a Master at all. You see that quite a bit with CD
drives as the only drive on a ribbon cable and
most hard drives work fine in that config now too.

The problem is potentially with an unpowered drive physically
connected to the ribbon cable, not the master/slave question.

If the Slave were unpowered and the Master powered?
If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc., etc.

Its all irrelevant. What matters is if there is a drive
which isnt powered plugged into the ribbon cable.

Assuming that the signals "see" a high input impedance at
the HD's circuit card, I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference
to the channel controller whether the circuitry of the card were
powered on unpowered, i.e. at boot-up, the BIOS would not
see the unpowered device, and the IDE controller wouldn't
try to talk to it, and the dead circuit card's high input
impedance would not drain signals passing by it.

That last is the problem, the unpowered ics on the ribbon cable.

"Rod Speed" wrote:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

The short story is that there doesnt need to be
a Master at all. You see that quite a bit with CD
drives as the only drive on a ribbon cable and
most hard drives work fine in that config now too.

The problem is potentially with an unpowered drive physically
connected to the ribbon cable, not the master/slave question.


Right. I meant a dead device at the *usual position* of a
Master (at the end of the 2-device cable) and the *usual position*
of a Slave (at the mid connector of the cable). My assumption
has been that the roles of Master and Slave on the same channel
were only for device differentiation for the IDE channel controller.
Please correct me if that is wrong.


If the Slave were unpowered and the Master powered?
If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc., etc.

Its all irrelevant. What matters is if there is a drive
which isnt powered plugged into the ribbon cable.


Right. Again, I meant the effect of dead (unpowered)
devices at the *usual positions* of Master and Slave. IOW,
does a dead device at either position on the ribbon cable
upset the signals for the other device?

BTW, does is matter a whit if there are 2 devices
(e.g. HDs) on a cable and the device jumpered "Master"
is at the mid connector and the device jumpered "Slave"
were at the end connector? I have been assuming that
there is no difference other than which device will default
to being the boot device. Is that correct?


Assuming that the signals "see" a high input impedance at
the HD's circuit card, I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference
to the channel controller whether the circuitry of the card were
powered on unpowered, i.e. at boot-up, the BIOS would not
see the unpowered device, and the IDE controller wouldn't
try to talk to it, and the dead circuit card's high input
impedance would not drain signals passing by it.

That last is the problem, the unpowered ics on the ribbon cable.


Yup. That's the question, too. :-)


*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

"chrisv" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing. This is
why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB or whatever,
have connectors that ensure that the power is applied before
the signals are connected.


I was *not* asking about a hot-swap wherein the
logical state of the drive would be undefined when
powered was applied by virtue of the signal cables
being pre-connected. I *was* asking about doing the
switching ON/OFF of power cables while the PC was
shut down.

I didn't think you were trying to hot-swap. I just threw that in as
an example of the importance of never having signals connected to
un-powered devices.

This would be logically equivalent to physically
connecting and disconnecting the power cables to various
HDs by opening the case, etc. I know this works in
some configurations - single HDs on separate channels -
because I've done it. That is, just disconnecting the
power cable of one HD allows the other HD (on the
other IDE channel) to boot up in isolation.

It's not surprising that you can get away with it when there's nothing
else on that bus that needs to work...

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

THAT is what I don't think will work. Rod says it will, and maybe it
will, for some controller/HD combinations. But it's quite hokey to do
that, even if you get away with it.

If the Slave were unpowered and the Master
powered? If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc.,
etc. Assuming that the signals "see" a high input impedance at
the HD's circuit card,

That's a big assumption.

I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference
to the channel controller whether the circuitry of the card were
powered on unpowered, i.e. at boot-up, the BIOS would not
see the unpowered device, and the IDE controller wouldn't
try to talk to it, and the dead circuit card's high input impedance
would not drain signals passing by it.

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
Rod Speed wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and
configurations to a 2-device IDE cable. What would
happen if the Master HD at the end of a cable were
unpowered while the Slave were powered?

The short story is that there doesnt need to be
a Master at all. You see that quite a bit with CD
drives as the only drive on a ribbon cable and
most hard drives work fine in that config now too.

The problem is potentially with an unpowered drive physically
connected to the ribbon cable, not the master/slave question.

Right. I meant a dead device at the *usual position* of
a Master (at the end of the 2-device cable) and the *usual
position* of a Slave (at the mid connector of the cable).

Thats only true of a cable select cable. It doesnt matter
which drive is on which connector with a master/slave config.

My assumption has been that the roles of Master
and Slave on the same channel were only for device
differentiation for the IDE channel controller.

Cant see what the relevance of that is to what is being discussed.

Please correct me if that is wrong.

If the Slave were unpowered and the Master powered?
If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc., etc.

Its all irrelevant. What matters is if there is a drive
which isnt powered plugged into the ribbon cable.

Right. Again, I meant the effect of dead (unpowered)
devices at the *usual positions* of Master and Slave.
IOW, does a dead device at either position on the
ribbon cable upset the signals for the other device?

Nope, makes no difference. The only difference
the position makes is when there is just one drive
on the ribbon cable and the end connector has
nothing connected to it. In that situation the unused
bit of the ribbon cable is a stub and you can get a
reflection off the unconnected end with digital signals.

But an unpowered drive on that end
connector should stop most of that.

BTW, does is matter a whit if there are 2 devices
(e.g. HDs) on a cable and the device jumpered
"Master" is at the mid connector and the device
jumpered "Slave" were at the end connector?

Nope, thats fine. The only undesirable config is with
just one drive on the ribbon cable, and that drive on
the middle connector. In that case you have a length
of ribbon cable going nowhere and that can produce
reflections on the cable with digital signals.

I have been assuming that there is no
difference other than which device will default
to being the boot device. Is that correct?

It wont even affect which drive is the boot device.
That is determined by which drive is specified as
the boot drive in the bios and has nothing to do
with which is master or slave or which physical
connector its connected to with a master/slave config.

It does matter with a cable select config where the
master and slave is determined by which connector the
drive is connected to and not the jumpering on the drive.

Assuming that the signals "see" a high input impedance at
the HD's circuit card, I'm guessing it wouldn't make a difference
to the channel controller whether the circuitry of the card were
powered on unpowered, i.e. at boot-up, the BIOS would not
see the unpowered device, and the IDE controller wouldn't
try to talk to it, and the dead circuit card's high input
impedance would not drain signals passing by it.

That last is the problem, the unpowered ics on the ribbon cable.

Yup. That's the question, too. :-)

"Rod Speed" wrote:

"chrisv" wrote in message ...
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing.

It does work most of the time with removable drive bays.

I'm not familiar with these... Are you saying they leave multiple
drives connected to a bus, with some of those drives not powered?

This is why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB
or whatever, have connectors that ensure that the
power is applied before the signals are connected.

Nope, thats for a completely different reason.

Well, it allows the device's reset circuitry to bring things to a
known state, as well... I don't think your "nope" is warranted,
however.

And what they do is ensure that GROUND is connected
first on insertion and disconnected last on removal.

Maybe with some hot-swapable devices, but not all. USB clearly
connects power and ground at the same time, as does Compact PCI
(cPCI).

http://www.intersil.com/data/tb/tb386.pdf

http://www.quicklogic.com/images/cpci.pdf

chrisv wrote:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

THAT is what I don't think will work. Rod says it will, and maybe it
will, for some controller/HD combinations. But it's quite hokey to do
that, even if you get away with it.

If the Slave were unpowered and the Master
powered? If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc.,
etc.

I should have noted that switched master and slave around is
irrelevant to this situation.

"chrisv" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

THAT is what I don't think will work. Rod says it will,
and maybe it will, for some controller/HD combinations.
But it's quite hokey to do that, even if you get away with it.


Hey! The whole scheme is hokey, including the removable
drive tray/rack. I just want to know if it *works*. If it works,
it would save a whole bunch of labor, and it would encourage
me to do backups more often.

*TimDaniels*

ATA-4 (1997) standard states that all lines driven by devices shall be
tri-state (except DASP). That means anything made in the last 5 years should
cause no problems to the other device if it is powered off. On my older
drives, it did cause problems.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...

I was *not* asking about a hot-swap wherein the
logical state of the drive would be undefined when
powered was applied by virtue of the signal cables
being pre-connected. I *was* asking about doing the
switching ON/OFF of power cables while the PC was
shut down. This would be logically equivalent to physically
connecting and disconnecting the power cables to various
HDs by opening the case, etc. I know this works in
some configurations - single HDs on separate channels -
because I've done it. That is, just disconnecting the
power cable of one HD allows the other HD (on the
other IDE channel) to boot up in isolation.

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message ...
"chrisv" wrote:
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

THAT is what I don't think will work. Rod says it will,
and maybe it will, for some controller/HD combinations.
But it's quite hokey to do that, even if you get away with it.


Hey! The whole scheme is hokey, including the removable
drive tray/rack. I just want to know if it *works*. If it works,
it would save a whole bunch of labor, and it would encourage
me to do backups more often.

Its completely mad to be using a kludge like that for backup.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use image files
instead of clones of the boot drive instead and then
the whole question of how XP reacts with the clone
and the original visible on the first boot after the
clone has been done doesnt arise and there is no
need to bother with the massive kludge of turning
the power to the clone drive off for the first boot either.

And if you want a physically removable drive as the
destination for the backup, you'd be MUCH better off
using a proper formal standard like firewire or USB2
than the monster kludge of removable drive bays anyway.

"chrisv" wrote:
chrisv wrote:

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:

My question really hinges on the effect of unpowered
devices connected in various combinations and configurations
to a 2-device IDE cable. What would happen if the Master
HD at the end of a cable were unpowered while the Slave
were powered?

THAT is what I don't think will work. Rod says it will, and
maybe it will, for some controller/HD combinations. But it's
quite hokey to do that, even if you get away with it.

If the Slave were unpowered and the Master
powered? If Master/Slave positions were reversed? Etc.,
etc.

I should have noted that switched master and slave around is
irrelevant to this situation.


As I pointed out in a response to Rod Speed, I meant the
devices at the middle connector and end connector, whatever
their jumpering. That is, would a dead device at the middle impair
the signaling for the end device, and would a dead device at the
end impair signaling for the middle device?

*TimDaniels*

chrisv wrote in message
...
Rod Speed wrote
chrisv wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

I'd be very surprised if you get away with that. Having
un-powered electronics connected to your bus is generally
a sure-fire way to drag the bus down to nothing.

It does work most of the time with removable drive bays.

I'm not familiar with these... Are you saying they leave multiple
drives connected to a bus, with some of those drives not powered?

Yes. Most of them have a usually key operated switch
which basically just turns the power off the drive in it.

If you boot with the power turned off that drive, it will
normally have the drive plugged into the ribbon cable still.

This is why hot-swap devices, whether they are USB
or whatever, have connectors that ensure that the
power is applied before the signals are connected.

Nope, thats for a completely different reason.

Well, it allows the device's reset circuitry
to bring things to a known state, as well...

Thats not the reason the ground is connected
first and last. Its primarily so you dont get the
supply connected before the ground return.

I don't think your "nope" is warranted, however.

It is anyway.

And what they do is ensure that GROUND is connected
first on insertion and disconnected last on removal.

Maybe with some hot-swapable devices, but not all.

Bull****.

USB clearly connects power and ground at the same time,

Nope, you're ignoring the metal surround connection.

as does Compact PCI (cPCI).

Wrong again. You're mangling the story completely with OV there.

http://www.intersil.com/data/tb/tb386.pdf

http://www.quicklogic.com/images/cpci.pdf

"Rod Speed" wrote:
Its completely mad to be using a kludge like that for
backup.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use image files
instead of clones of the boot drive instead and then
the whole question of how XP reacts with the clone
and the original visible on the first boot after the
clone has been done doesnt arise and there is no
need to bother with the massive kludge of turning
the power to the clone drive off for the first boot either.


Yes, and I intend to make image files for most backups.
But I also want to have at least one bootable system ready
on another drive to switch to if my primary system drive
should fail. I currently keep a 2nd HD containing a bootable
image running in the PC for just such an emergency.

*TimDaniels*






And if you want a physically removable drive as the
destination for the backup, you'd be MUCH better off
using a proper formal standard like firewire or USB2
than the monster kludge of removable drive bays anyway.

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
Rod Speed wrote

Its completely mad to be using a kludge like that for backup.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use image files
instead of clones of the boot drive instead and then
the whole question of how XP reacts with the clone
and the original visible on the first boot after the
clone has been done doesnt arise and there is no
need to bother with the massive kludge of turning
the power to the clone drive off for the first boot either.

Yes, and I intend to make image files for most backups.

But I also want to have at least one bootable system ready on
another drive to switch to if my primary system drive should fail.

Why ? With any decent imaging app all you have
to do is boot the distribution CD or the rescue floppy
and restore from an image file to the replacement
drive if the primary boot drive ever does fail.

I currently keep a 2nd HD containing a bootable
image running in the PC for just such an emergency.

Mad to be using a kludge like that for such an unlikely
event. The last thing you want is to discover that you've
managed to stuff up the power sequencing when you
come to try to use the clone and find it wont boot.

And if you want a physically removable drive as the
destination for the backup, you'd be MUCH better off
using a proper formal standard like firewire or USB2
than the monster kludge of removable drive bays anyway.

Eric Gisin wrote in message
...

ATA-4 (1997) standard states that all lines driven
by devices shall be tri-state (except DASP).

That does not say that that should
happen with the drive not powered tho.

That means anything made in the last 5 years should
cause no problems to the other device if it is powered off.

Its more complicated than that.

On my older drives, it did cause problems.

Just because tristate drivers werent being used.


"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
...

I was *not* asking about a hot-swap wherein the
logical state of the drive would be undefined when
powered was applied by virtue of the signal cables
being pre-connected. I *was* asking about doing the
switching ON/OFF of power cables while the PC was
shut down. This would be logically equivalent to physically
connecting and disconnecting the power cables to various
HDs by opening the case, etc. I know this works in
some configurations - single HDs on separate channels -
because I've done it. That is, just disconnecting the
power cable of one HD allows the other HD (on the
other IDE channel) to boot up in isolation.

"Rod Speed" wrote:
Timothy Daniels wrote:
Rod Speed wrote
Its completely mad to be using a kludge like that for backup.
Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use image files
instead of clones of the boot drive instead and then
the whole question of how XP reacts with the clone
and the original visible on the first boot after the
clone has been done doesnt arise and there is no
need to bother with the massive kludge of turning
the power to the clone drive off for the first boot either.

Yes, and I intend to make image files for most backups.

But I also want to have at least one bootable system ready on
another drive to switch to if my primary system drive should fail.

Why ? With any decent imaging app all you have
to do is boot the distribution CD or the rescue floppy
and restore from an image file to the replacement
drive if the primary boot drive ever does fail.


And then what, isolate the resulting bootable image for
its first boot up? Then open the case again and reconnect
the HDs and reboot? Why not have all that already done?
I want the switchover to be as simple and quick as possible.
My current practices promise that. All I want to do is to
simplify the HD cloning in preparation for a inoportune
primary HD failure.


I currently keep a 2nd HD containing a bootable
image running in the PC for just such an emergency.

Mad to be using a kludge like that for such an unlikely
event. The last thing you want is to discover that you've
managed to stuff up the power sequencing when you
come to try to use the clone and find it wont boot.


An unlikely event is exactly what I'm preparing for -
the same reason that I have fire insurance on my home.
I have the clone already on the 2nd HD in the PC and
powered up - ready to boot after a quick change in the
BIOS' boot sequence. The power "sequencing" via
manual switch is only meant to facilitate *making* the
bootable image, not to put it into operation. If I had the
money and space, I'd have a 2nd computer running in
tandem, getting exactly the same input and doing exactly
the same things that my current computer is doing. But
what I do now is a satisfactory approximation to that.


And if you want a physically removable drive as the
destination for the backup, you'd be MUCH better off
using a proper formal standard like firewire or USB2
than the monster kludge of removable drive bays anyway.


Why? Those external HDs are more costly and slower.
And I've read nothing but woe in Usenet about cloning to
USB2 and FireWire external drives. Furthermore, my PC
would need another PCI add-in card to add USB2 and/or
FireWire to it. Right now, I have 4 new Maxtor ATA/133
7200rpm HDs with 8MB caches to use. Why should I go
to the hassle and greater expense to use a slower medium?

Please understand that I didn't start this thread to ask
for advice. I simply asked about the effects having of an
unpowered device connected to an IDE cable.

*TimDaniels*

"Eric Gisin" wrote:
ATA-4 (1997) standard states that all lines driven by devices
shall be tri-state (except DASP). That means anything made
in the last 5 years should cause no problems to the other device
if it is powered off....

By "is powered off" do you mean "has its power switched to OFF"
(the power to one drive ceases while the other drive remains running),
or do you mean "remains unpowered"? My question concerns the
latter scenario.

*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...
Rod Speed wrote
Timothy Daniels wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Its completely mad to be using a kludge like that for backup.
Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use image files
instead of clones of the boot drive instead and then
the whole question of how XP reacts with the clone
and the original visible on the first boot after the
clone has been done doesnt arise and there is no
need to bother with the massive kludge of turning
the power to the clone drive off for the first boot either.

Yes, and I intend to make image files for most backups.

But I also want to have at least one bootable system ready on
another drive to switch to if my primary system drive should fail.

Why ? With any decent imaging app all you have
to do is boot the distribution CD or the rescue floppy
and restore from an image file to the replacement
drive if the primary boot drive ever does fail.

And then what,

Restore from that image file to the replacement hard drive.

isolate the resulting bootable image for its first boot up?

Not necessary if you're restoring from an image file and not cloning.

Then open the case again and reconnect the HDs and reboot?

You have to open the case to replace the boot drive thats failed.

Why not have all that already done?

Because removable drive bays are a kludge that
sometimes work and sometimes dont and trying to
turn the power off to one drive for the first boot after
a clone used for a backup is an even worse kludge.
You dont need any of that if you image the boot drive
to an external USB2 or firewire drive for backup.

I want the switchover to be as simple and quick as possible.

Mindlessly silly when boot drive failure is so rare.

My current practices promise that.

Like hell they do when you have to fart around
disconnecting the power to the clone for the
first boot after the clone is made for backup.

If you are stupid enough to use removable drive bays, you
can just remove the clone for the first boot after the clone.

All I want to do is to simplify the HD cloning in
preparation for a inoportune primary HD failure.

And are just making life hard for yourself in the backup
process when it makes much more sense to do what
doesnt require any kludge at all in the backup process
and only requires a restore to the replacement hard
drive in the MUCH rarer event of a boot drive failure.

I currently keep a 2nd HD containing a bootable
image running in the PC for just such an emergency.

Mad to be using a kludge like that for such an unlikely
event. The last thing you want is to discover that you've
managed to stuff up the power sequencing when you
come to try to use the clone and find it wont boot.

An unlikely event is exactly what I'm preparing for -
the same reason that I have fire insurance on my home.

Yes, but it doesnt make any sense to try to minimise the
TIME TO HANDLE THE BOOT DRIVE FAILURE, what
makes much more sense is to minimise THE TIME TO
DO THE BACKUP AND TO NOT KLUDGE THAT PROCESS.

I have the clone already on the 2nd HD in
the PC and powered up - ready to boot after
a quick change in the BIOS' boot sequence.

In the rare event that the boot drive fails.

No need for that to be as quick as possible.

The power "sequencing" via manual switch is only meant to
facilitate *making* the bootable image, not to put it into operation.

Duh.

If I had the money and space, I'd have a 2nd computer
running in tandem, getting exactly the same input and doing
exactly the same things that my current computer is doing.
But what I do now is a satisfactory approximation to that.

Nope, its a collosal kludge that may well fang you on the
arse if the boot drive does actually fail and you discover
that you havent actually made the clone properly.

And if you want a physically removable drive as the
destination for the backup, you'd be MUCH better off
using a proper formal standard like firewire or USB2
than the monster kludge of removable drive bays anyway.

Why?

Because those follow a proper standard and arent a collosal kludge.

Those external HDs are more costly and slower.

The speed is irrelevant when only a fool cares
about how long the image file creation takes.

And I've read nothing but woe in Usenet about
cloning to USB2 and FireWire external drives.

Your deficiencys are your problem. And you dont CLONE
to them, you WRITE AN IMAGE FILE TO THEM.

Furthermore, my PC would need another PCI
add-in card to add USB2 and/or FireWire to it.

Hardly what you might call the end of civilisation as we know it.

Right now, I have 4 new Maxtor ATA/133 7200rpm
HDs with 8MB caches to use. Why should I go to the
hassle and greater expense to use a slower medium?

Because they aint a collosal kludge that might work and might
well fang you on the arse when you need to use the clone.

Please understand that I didn't start this thread to ask
for advice. I simply asked about the effects having of
an unpowered device connected to an IDE cable.

You have always been, and always will
be, completely and utterly irrelevant.

In spades when you cant even manage to work out the basics.

Well, not to spoil your little party, but I have used freeware, beta,
drive cloning software from xxclone.com to copy one drive containing
XP SP1a to a second drive on my computer. I booted off the target
drive without any major problems, even though I didn't disconnect any
drives. I just changed my BIOS to boot of the SCSI instead of the IDE.

There were only a few glitches, but these existed even when the
cloning was done as prescribed by Speed, by disconnecting all other
drives. One little glitch was the bootup presented multiple boot
options for both the source and target drives, but these can easily be
removed using bootcfg or even better, msconfig. The other more major
one was that some user settings and shortcuts got clobbered, and I had
to reinstall or repair a small number of my programs.

kludge, fang, and arse are funny words


Timothy Daniels wrote:
As Rod Speed has pointed out, the clone drive
resulting from a cloning of a WinXP system HD
should be the only drive with an a WinXP OS
on an active partition when booting it up for the
1st time. (Thereafter it can "see" and be "seen"
by another OS in the PC.) The hassle is that you
have to open the case, disconnect the cables to the
other drives, including the one that has just been
cloned, boot up the new clone, and then, usually,
open the case again and reconnect the other drives.

It would be a lot easier if one could just shut down
and then disconnect the other drives by use of a
physical switch to break the connection with their
power cables. That would avoid all the hassle of
opening the case and unplugging the other drives.

So, does anyone have any information that would
indicate if switching the power cables would work?

*TimDaniels*

Here, again, folksies, is my intended system:

Two or more HDs are mounted in removable trays.
Periodically, I copy a clone file to one of several
partitions on each of them, keeping a running archive
of about 8 weekly backups of the entire primary HD.
These removable HDs are ATA/133 HDs and
they're both faster and cheaper than USB2 or
FireWire external HDs. Copies go faster, so I'm
more likely to backup often, and being cheaper, I
could afford to buy even another HD and removable
tray to mount it in, thus extending my archive's
temporal span.

A clone HD is inside my PC, containing a bootable
clone of the primary HD, for immediate use if the
primary HD should fail.

I haven't yet installed the removable HD components,
but I do have a clone HD constantly running in my
PC, and I remake the clone once a week, alternating
between 3 extra HDs that I have so as to have
time-series snapshots of my primary HD going back
through 3 backup points.

An objection repeatedly raised is that this is a "kludge".
So what? If it works, who cares if it isn't to "specs"?

Another objection is that the failure of the primary HD
is such an unlikely event that it doesn't deserve making
bootable clones. That presupposes that the time to
copy a clone file from an archive medium to a spare
HD that one manually substitutes for the failed HD is
irrelevant. Here's the scenario: I do stock trading in
the morning hours. At any time, a hard drive failure
could be catastrophic if I couldn't recover in a couple
minutes. At one time I had dialup, DSL and cable
internet service, and there were times that I was
thankful for the redundancy. Now I just have dialup
and cable (through 2 ISPs), but being prepared has
saved me a bundle a couple times, and it's worth the
effort. I also do software development during the rest
of the day for university courses I take. I like to have
separate one or two HDs for that purpose. I'd like
nothing better to be able to switch between HDs without
having to open the case, etc., and without having to run
all the HDs all the time. Thus - the desire to have power
switches to prevent unused HDs from being powered up
as well as to assist in isolation when booting up clone
HDs for the first time. A device toward that purpose
might be the Romtec Trios II, which would have the
advantage over manual switches by preventing a change
in power to a hard drive if the PC is running. The down-
side is that it takes up the space of 2 PCI cards. The
upside - it flouts the specs, of course! :-) And....
it's mindlessly simple.

*TimDaniels*

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 20:36:19 -0800, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:


And then what, isolate the resulting bootable image for
its first boot up? Then open the case again and reconnect
the HDs and reboot? Why not have all that already done?
I want the switchover to be as simple and quick as possible.
My current practices promise that. All I want to do is to
simplify the HD cloning in preparation for a inoportune
primary HD failure.

Assuming you haven't riveted the case shut, going to this stage of
pre-planning may be excessive. Primary HD failure isn't THAT common, the
amount of time spent implementing this is certainly far greater than that
of swapping drives around. If immediate uptime is really that important
then you should consider RAID 1.


Please understand that I didn't start this thread to ask
for advice. I simply asked about the effects having of an
unpowered device connected to an IDE cable.

*TimDaniels*

After you've made a backup image as others have suggested, you can test
that on your specific equipment, easily enough.

I will soon be using Drive Image to clone the hard drive that my XP
SP1A (NTFS) system boots from, on to a new drive. I also have other
hard drives in my system used as data storage (non-bootable). I've
cloned lots of boot drives before, but this will be my first one under
XP SP1A.

My past practice had me always swapping both the power and IDE cables
from the source (the drive I just cloned) drive over to the new drive
after the clone finished and before the first boot of the new drive.

Question: Is this practice still OK?

I've been trying to follow this thread, but it's gotten pretty diverse
and hard to follow, but I thought I'd try and get a straight-forward
answer to help me in my upcoming situation.

Thanks,
Bob

"Bob" wrote:
I will soon be using Drive Image to clone the hard drive that my XP
SP1A (NTFS) system boots from, on to a new drive. I also have other
hard drives in my system used as data storage (non-bootable). I've
cloned lots of boot drives before, but this will be my first one under
XP SP1A.

My past practice had me always swapping both the power and IDE cables
from the source (the drive I just cloned) drive over to the new drive
after the clone finished and before the first boot of the new drive.

Question: Is this practice still OK?


Yes, that's still OK, but for some purposes, overkill. I just
disconnect the source drive and leave the destination drive (the
clone) still connected as it is. The reason is that I will have to
reconnect the clone drive for normal use, anyway. I also have
the 2 HDs on separate channels. My question was twofold:
If they were on the same channel, would just disconnecting
the source's power cable (leaving the data cable connected)
be OK? Since there are a lot of configurations for this latter
situation (different drive speeds, different positions for
Master and Slave, Cable Select vs. Master/Slave, PCI card
IDE channels vs. motherboard IDE channels, etc.), I thought
I'd plumb the minds of the usual newsgroup suspects. It
looks, though, that I'll have to do my own experimenting, and
the results will apply only to my own particular setup and
equipment.

*TimDaniels*

"Shailesh Humbad" wrote:
Well, not to spoil your little party, but I have used freeware,
beta, drive cloning software from xxclone.com to copy one
drive containing XP SP1a to a second drive on my computer.
I booted off the target drive without any major problems,
even though I didn't disconnect any drives. I just changed
my BIOS to boot of the SCSI instead of the IDE.


Your SCSI hard drive was the clone HD, then, and you
changed your BIOS' boot sequence (i.e. its hard drive
booting priority list) before boot-loading from your new
clone HD?


There were only a few glitches, but these existed even when
the cloning was done as prescribed by Speed, by disconnecting
all other drives. One little glitch was the bootup presented
multiple boot options for both the source and target drives,
but these can easily be removed using bootcfg or even better,
msconfig.


Was this "multiple boot options" an option presented just
before the operating system was loaded which gave you
a choice of which copy of the OS (i.e. which HD) to boot?
Was the solution to just edit the boot.ini file by turning
the unwanted option into a comment by putting square
brackets around its entry in the file? If so, this is a familiar
problem, solved, as I recall, by shutting down immediately
after the cloning operation is complete.


The other more major one was that some user settings and
shortcuts got clobbered, and I had to reinstall or repair a
small number of my programs.


Not good to hear. I had higher expectations for xxClone.
How easy was the utility to understand and to use?


kludge, fang, and arse are funny words


"Kludge" is an Americanism as far as I know. It was
around in the late 50s/early 60s. "Fang" may be an
Ozzyism, "arse" is a Brit word. Our beloved Rod
Speed seems to post from Western Australia.

*TimDaniels*

Your SCSI hard drive was the clone HD, then, and you
changed your BIOS' boot sequence (i.e. its hard drive
booting priority list) before boot-loading from your new
clone HD?

Yes. The SCSI device is actually the Sil3112 on-board SATA RAID
controller. I cloned from an IDE drive to the SATA RAID drive. After
that completed, I shut down WinXP, reboot, and set the BIOS to boot
from SCSI before IDE. I can leave it as-is and continue booting from
IDE of course, but I wanted to switch my system drive to the RAID.
It's a little freaky to boot up and see the exact same thing, so I
went to Disk Management in System Management to verify I was booting
from the drive I intended. xxclone has a new feature to change the
desktop background image on the target drive, but I've never tried it.


Was this "multiple boot options" an option presented just
before the operating system was loaded which gave you
a choice of which copy of the OS (i.e. which HD) to boot?
Was the solution to just edit the boot.ini file by turning
the unwanted option into a comment by putting square
brackets around its entry in the file? If so, this is a familiar
problem, solved, as I recall, by shutting down immediately
after the cloning operation is complete.

Yep. I looked at the boot.ini from a text editor, msconfig, and
bootcfg. I didn't want to mess it up, so I used msconfig. In the
General tab, I selected "Selective startup" and "Use Original
boot.ini". Without rebooting, I set it back to "Regular startup" and
looked at the Boot.ini tab. This seemed to reset the boot.ini to
default, and then I rebooted and the OS choice options were gone.

A couple other times I used xxclone, this glitch did not happen, but I
was not able to pin down why. It is probably what you say.

Not good to hear. I had higher expectations for xxClone.
How easy was the utility to understand and to use?

Well, reinstalling and repairing a few programs is far better than
reinstalling all of Windows and all your applications, or using stupid
WinXP backup and restore, which requires you to reinstall an exactly
matching version of WinXP before doing a restore. XXclone is also
beta software, so some glitches are to be expected. The program is
very simple to use, it just has one screen, and you just choose the
source drive, target drive, and clone method, and click Start.

Shailesh

After cloning, Quicken 2003 wouldn't open my quicken data file, so per
the Intuit support website suggestion, I had to reinstall it. Office
XP asked for the install CD to repair some shortcuts. Some shortcuts
in my start menu lost their icons, and I had to delete and recreate
them. ATI control panel asked me to register again. Other than that,
all the other files, settings, and programs were intact.

Shailesh

Timothy Daniels wrote in
message ...

Here, again, folksies, is my intended system:

Two or more HDs are mounted in removable trays.

And you will find that thats a kludge that sometimes works
and often doesnt with modern high performance systems.

Periodically, I copy a clone file to one of several
partitions on each of them, keeping a running archive
of about 8 weekly backups of the entire primary HD.
These removable HDs are ATA/133 HDs and
they're both faster and cheaper than USB2 or
FireWire external HDs.

Many kludges are cheaper because they are a kludge.

Copies go faster, so I'm more likely to backup often,

Only a fool sits there twiddling his thumbs while backups
are being done. Anyone with any sense automates the
backups so if they take a little longer its a complete yawn.

And the speed difference with image file creation is small anyway.

and being cheaper, I could afford to buy even
another HD and removable tray to mount it in,
thus extending my archive's temporal span.

Makes much more sense to use something
a lot more modern like V2i Protector that
does incremental image backups, automated.

A clone HD is inside my PC, containing
a bootable clone of the primary HD, for
immediate use if the primary HD should fail.

Which by definition is a rare event, so if you have to open
the case to swap the drive thats no big deal time wise.
You have to open the case to get the dead one out anyway.

I haven't yet installed the removable HD components,

And so havent YET been fanged on the arse by the collosal
kludge those are with modern high performance systems.

Bet you wont have the balls to mention the problems you get.

but I do have a clone HD constantly running in my
PC, and I remake the clone once a week, alternating
between 3 extra HDs that I have so as to have
time-series snapshots of my primary HD going back
through 3 backup points.

That description is so confused that it isnt at all
clear just what you are doing. Is the clone in the
PC or are the clones on removable drive trays ?

And if you have weekly clones, what is the point
of the other image backups mentioned at the top ?

An objection repeatedly raised is that this is a "kludge".
So what? If it works, who cares if it isn't to "specs"?

And WHEN it doesnt work reliably because you're using
a collosal kludge that flouts the specs in a number of
areas, you've ****ed FAR more time against the wall
as a result of that kludge than you will ever save in the
unlikely event that the boot drive fails and you need to
open the case to replace that drive and restore from
an image file thats on an external drive.

Another objection is that the failure of the
primary HD is such an unlikely event that it
doesn't deserve making bootable clones.

That the small reduction in time to a usable system
in the unlikely event of a boot drive failure isnt worth
worrying about because its by definition a rare event.

What matters is the MUCH greater amount of time
wasted by farting around with removable drive bays
and your long winded manual approach to backup.

Makes a hell of a lot more sense to use a hardware
approach which allows completely automatic backups
with at most a quick unplugging of an external drive
so you can have the backup drive physically separated
from the PC its backing up so you dont lose anything if the
place burns down or the place is looted by a druggy etc.

In other words the only physical action required is
to physically separate the backup drive from the PC
and that isnt involved in the backup process at all.

That presupposes that the time to copy a clone
file from an archive medium to a spare HD that one
manually substitutes for the failed HD is irrelevant.

Nope, just that the small DIFFERENCE in time to handle
a failed boot drive is irrelevant. You have to open the case
to get the dead drive out to RMA or replace it anyway.

Here's the scenario: I do stock trading in the morning
hours. At any time, a hard drive failure could be
catastrophic if I couldn't recover in a couple minutes.

Then you should be using RAID1 instead and then
there wont be any downtime at all and you can
remove the failed drive once the market is closed.

If you keep manually cloning the boot drive and
manually turning the power to the clone off for
the first boot after the clone has been done,
you can guarantee that the one time you do need
to boot off the clone, that you have forgotten to
turn the power off the clone for the first boot after
the clone and that you cant actually boot off the
clone at all when the original boot drive fails.

At one time I had dialup, DSL and cable
internet service, and there were times that
I was thankful for the redundancy. Now I
just have dialup and cable (through 2 ISPs),
but being prepared has saved me a bundle
a couple times, and it's worth the effort.

Irrelevant to how to handle a boot drive failure.

And if you need real redundancy, its stupid
to be relying on just one PC anyway. The only
thing that makes any sense is more than one PC.

I also do software development during the rest
of the day for university courses I take. I like to
have separate one or two HDs for that purpose.

Gets sillier by the minute. No need for separate HDs for that.

I'd like nothing better to be able to switch
between HDs without having to open the case, etc.,

You can do that with a decent boot manager.

and without having to run all the HDs all the time.

Mindlessly silly. Pointless using a collosal
kludge for such a superficial reason.
Because that WILL fang you on the arse.

Thus - the desire to have power switches to prevent
unused HDs from being powered up as well as to assist
in isolation when booting up clone HDs for the first time.

You're obviously just another stupid know it all kid thats
so stupid that it has to get fanged on the arse before it
eventually dawns on it that there is a reason for formal specs.

Hopefully that will be a very expensive lesson for you.

A device toward that purpose might be the Romtec Trios II,
which would have the advantage over manual switches by
preventing a change in power to a hard drive if the PC is running.

If you do want to go this stupid route, the only viable approach
is to use SATA drives that are speced for hot swap. At a price.

Your trading must be hopeless if you cant even afford external drives.

The down-side is that it takes up the space of 2 PCI cards.
The upside - it flouts the specs, of course! :-) And....
it's mindlessly simple.

You'll go blind if you dont watch out, child.

"Shailesh Humbad" commented on xxClone beta:
After cloning, Quicken 2003 wouldn't open my quicken data file,
so per the Intuit support website suggestion, I had to reinstall it.
Office XP asked for the install CD to repair some shortcuts.
Some shortcuts in my start menu lost their icons, and I had to
delete and recreate them. ATI control panel asked me to register
again. Other than that, all the other files, settings, and programs
were intact.

Thanks for the elaboration on xxClone. I hope you reported
the problems to xxClone so they could squash those bugs. What
version were you using?

*TimDaniels*