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

Hi sunandoghosh,

There are no cheap ways to physically switch between hard disks, as it's possible and some specialyzed systems, mostly on medical imagery can do that (costs something about $ 12,000 or +)

I think using an external USB adapter or a 5.25 docking bay or some external HD case will better fit your needs.

Chris

It is not exactly what you are talking about, but check the vantec ez swap.

http://www.atruereview.com/ezswap/index.php

If you currently do this;

"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…"

then you can try to put one hard disk on IDE channel 1, and the other hard disk on IDE channel 2. On boot up, enter the bios as you mentioned you do above and turn off the IDE channel you don't want booting. If you have two optical drives, you can put one on each IDE channel (as Slaves) so you have a CDROM while working with either disk or O/S. With one channel turned off in the bios, theoretically there should be no data transfers occurring between IDE channels during operation. One system won't see the other one.

I'd say that efabes is on the right track - use a mobile rack solution. In this way you can plug in the HD you want to boot with and the other (however many you want) remain in your desk, vault, or wherever you want to keep them. I use mobile racks on several computers to segregate experiments. operating systems, and other things.

I've settled on using Kingwin products, and you can see their site HERE, and HERE are some IDE Examples. You can also get the trays without the mounting rails to fill your HD housing requirements. They also have the racks and extra trays for SATA etc.

This is an easy way to have a multi-use computer and to totally segregate the OSs, Data, Problems, etc, and the solution is relatively inexpensive. I'd stay away from the plastic units - HD cooling leaves a lot to be desired in these, even the ones with a fan attached, whereas with the aluminum trays plugged into an aluminum mounting rail act like a heatsink and the built-in fan then adds a lot to the equation.