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.