CPU/Mobo SWITCHING between TWO separate physical HDD drives…

S

sunandoghosh

Contributor
SWITCHING between TWO separate physical HDD drives…

Well…

Situation:

TWO separate HDD in one CPU:

(Say):

a. One HDD of 80 GB used for general work and internet etc…(having its own windows xp prof OS)

b. Second HDD of 160 GB containing utmost critical and sensitive applications and data…(having its own windows advanced server 2000 OS along with oracle etc)

PRESENT:

BOTH HDD connected to motherboard always and at the time of starting the computer…I choose the desirable HDD on which I want to work by going into BIOS Settings…

PROBLEM:

It has happened that I logged into HDD one of 80 GB and virus got transferred from 80GB HDD (since it is the one which is connected to internet) to 160 GB HDD (which contains data and applications as critical as my life) and corrupted some important data and applications in 160 GB HDD…

This is true despite the fact that I had latest Norton Antivirus updated daily installed on 80 GB HDD along with spyware blaster and almost daily run spybot and adaware…

Furthermore the 160 GB HDD had MCAFEE 2005 full security solutions installed…

SOLUTION I INITIALLY THOUGHT:

Connect the data cable and power chord to the HDD which I intend to use at any one point in time AND DISCONNECT the other HDD’s data cable and power chord…(but both HDD remaining fit in CPU)…

PROBLEM:

This switching of HDD by connecting the data cable and power chord of one HDD and disconnecting the second…is appearing too tough on me and also appears that it may NOT be healthy for the motherboard also in the long run….as I switch frequently many times every day on two HDD’s…

Also it’s NOT possible to let them connected despite the fact that one is used at any one time (due to virus reasons stated above)…

SO PLEASE SUGGEST ME WHAT SHOULD I DO SO THAT I CAN ENSURE THAT I AM ABLE TO HAVE ONLY ONE HDD CONNECTED AT ANY ONE POINT IN TIME TO THE MOTHERBOARD AND SAVED FROM CONNECTING / DISCONNECTING THE OTHER…??????????????????????

I MEAN IS THERE ANY SWITCH OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT………………????????????????????????

I hope I have been actually able to explain my problem in proper words so that someone might actually possibly suggest something….

Thanks and best regards,

Sunando

sunandoghosh (at) rediffmail (dot) com
 
Just disable the other hard drive in device manager :P or remove the mount point (the drive letter) from disk management ;)
 
Well, i had tried and used the following simple, cheap method years ago (1998 ) i think.
I do not know whether it would work now because of advance in technology, (Bios, ATA-133 specs, OS (winxp) etc...) but no harm in trying.
here is the method i used:
As you are well aware The hard disks can be set as Master and Slave via the jumpers on the back of the HDD.
The boot disk is always the master one.
now if you can make a simple switch to select master /slave between the hdd's then your problem would be solved.

in the sense that before switching on ur pc you can manually select from which HDD to boot by making it the master.

Connect the wires/switch such that if one is selected as master the other one is automatically set as slave.
Hint:

1) remove the jumpers from behind the hdd's and use wires that have connectors just like the jumpers, for e.g. the wires which go from the switches of ur case to the chassis header connectors on ur m/b , or like the 2pin (female) fan connectors.
2) use an appropiate switches for e.g. Dipole types, (which have multiple contacts). so that it becomes easy to automate the process of automatically selecting the other drive as slave at the flick of a switch.
I have given you the basic idea let us see how you develop on it....;) :D
Since explaing it in detail will require a lot of typing. i will do it later on . incase you have any difficulty you can post here.
 
@deejay: Think he wants to isolate one drive from the other ;)
He doesnt have trouble switching between the two drives to boot up, rather since one disk contains crucial apps he wants to isolate the non essential HDD from it when booting up and vice versa .
 
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what a stupid idea of Securing ur Data. fiddeling with the Hard disks on Dailay basis is the most stupid thing one w;d do.

If ur just too scared of the internet & If the data is so much of importance(the way u mentioned it, have a second(budget) PC for the mission Critical Purposes, so the whole set is isolated at all.
though what chaos mentioned was very right, but i dont know how convenient it is to go & set the things in Bios on daily basis
 
use a DPST switch with 5V and 12V as terminals. Switch on, HDD will be detected. Switch off, no HDD

@deej : Me tried it too...:D
 
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Crazy_Eddy said:
@deejay: Think he wants to isolate one drive from the other ;)

He doesnt have trouble switching between the two drives to boot up, rather since one disk contains crucial apps he wants to isolate the non essential HDD from it when booting up and vice versa .
Click to expand...
oh! he wants to keep the other HDD disconnected..........

Then a switch to control the power (+12 , +5) can be implemented as suggested by sunny above.
ps: make sure any switch on the power rails from the psu are of very high quality.
 
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the only real practical thing that comes to mind is bios. Just disable the HDD you wont be using in bios. Thats all.
Even without all this there is no need to panic that much. Maintain regular backups on some other partition. Most virus do damage to your windows partition. You can always reinstall apps. Just backup the work and important files on other partition too.
Use proper tools. Ditch Norton first. Use kaspersky or even free AV like Avast or Antivir. I rate them higher than Norton. The only good thing to come from norton is Norton Ghost which you can use to backup your entire partition and restore when needed.
Also many times weird stuff happens. That does not mean its virus ;)
And if the data is too critical then just buy a seperate 120GB HDD. Take weekly backups on that and then simply disconnect it after that. Connect it only when you need to backup stuff once a while.
I have 1 pata dedicated for that. i take backup and disable the IDE channel in bios.
 
Chaos's idea is good enuf - if they (different OSes) cannot see other partitions, no virus can infect one from the other. Or as I said, use a Virtual Machine. It will cost you, but is really secure except to the most dedicated of hackers (no virus can get thru at any rate, at least none that I have heard of)
 
funkymonkey said:
And if the data is too critical then just buy a seperate 120GB HDD. Take weekly backups on that and then simply disconnect it after that. Connect it only when you need to backup stuff once a while.
Click to expand...

I have 2 HDD's installed on the computer each with its own installaion of windows and I regularly go into the BIOS to change the boot drive as required. I am a fanatic when it comes to backing up. :) I do selective daily backups of my drives with Acronis True Image which IMHO is better than Ghost for backups. I used Ghost for years but after using Acronis I feel it is much better. I have never had a Virus attack as Kaspersky seems to have blocked all viruses.

I also use 2 drives attached to USB2 cases for my secondary backups. I use a file synchronizer software which updates these backup with one mouse click.
 
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