two hard drive questions...

[moisiss]

I am thinking about getting another HD for my desktop. I have been looking at 3 gb/s SATA drives and have a couple of questions.

1) My motherboard only supports SATA 150... so if I got a 3gb/s SATA drive it would work with my motherboard but would only run at 150 mb/s? Is this correct? Or do I have to get a SATA 150 drive (which oddly, are more expensive than 3 gb/s drives)?

2) I have been thinking about putting XP on both drives and choosing which one to boot from when I start my system up. Basically what I want to do is have two independant systems with different settings, programs, etc. How would I make it so that when I boot from say HD 1, I don't see the 2nd HD at all (or visa versa)? I don't want any communication between the two, I don't want to be able to access HD 2 when I have booted from HD 1 (or the other way around), I don't want Windows to even know that the other drive exists when I have booted from the other drive. I basically want to make them as separate as possible.... as much like two completely independant computers as possible. I am imagining that I would have to set this up in Windows? Any ideas?

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[Sora]

From what I know, you have SATA I, which is 1.5GB I think, and SATA II is 3GB thus being SATA 3.0

If thats so then no you cannot connect SATA II to SATA 1

 

[Ste]

From what I know, you have SATA I, which is 1.5GB I think, and SATA II is 3GB thus being SATA 3.0

If thats so then no you cannot connect SATA II to SATA 1

You can connect SATA II Drives to SATA I Drives. They will just run at SATA I Speeds.
But remember, Even with SATA I and II data is never sustained at that speed. Data Can only be transfered As fast as the read/write head can move. And its not that fast. (yet)

 

[moisiss]

You can connect SATA II Drives to SATA I Drives. They will just run at SATA I Speeds.

Cool.... that is good. That makes it a lot more likely that I will get another drive... especially considering if I decide to upgrade the whole system any time soon I will not have to get another new HD to use with it (unless I want to of course).

Anyone have any suggestions on question #2?

 

[moisiss]

anyone?

 

[Meithan]

About question #2, I think it's possible. Look here. It involves messing with the registry, so I'd be careful.

The alternative would be to use Windows XP user group policies to restrict access to the drive in question. There seems to be info here. If that doesn't work, you could try setting a disk quota of zero; the drive will be visible but it won't be writable. Info on enabling disk quotas here.

-----

From what I know, you have SATA I, which is 1.5GB I think, and SATA II is 3GB thus being SATA 3.0

Just for your information: Dispelling the Confusion: SATA II does not mean 3Gb/s