Will this work to keep IDE Hard Drive off?/Mounting switches

[fairfieldfalconsfan]

I was looking for a way to keep one hard drive (used for backup and other stuff) from running when I don't need it to. I don't want to have to unplug and plug in the power (Molex) every time. I was wondering if this product would work for this purpose.

Molex 4 Pin on/off Power Switch 12V and 5V DC

I had seen another one that only turned off the 12V but I thought this would be better because it turns both 12V & 5V off. I may use it for other purposes (fans) in the future.

If I would get this would there be any easy way to mount this behind the cover where another CD drive would be so it isn't sticking out of the back? I was also thinking it could stick out the back in a somewhat orderly fashion. It is just a basic no-brand case from a local PC shop. I don't want to have to open the case to get to the switch.

Thanks in advance!

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

It will work, you just can't turn it on/off while the PC is turned on, other wise, you risk surging the drive, or frying an IDE controller on your mobo as power does sometimes surge through the IDE cable.

 

[fairfieldfalconsfan]

Thanks for the quick reply c0rr0sive. I wouldn't dare try to turn it on when the PC is on. I wasn't sure if leaving the IDE data cable would affect it at all.

In the maybe-not-so-far future I may use 2 of these for dual booting without picking the boot device everytime. I could probably put the jumpers both on master and just turn on the hard drive I want to boot from. This would work right??

Do you have any ideas about mounting the switches without any costly mods?


BTW: off-topic but I love the smiley

 

[MindoverMaster]

Can't you just use an external chassis? Plug in the USB whenever you need it.

 

[Trotter]

^^^ Yes, something like this:

Newegg.com - Rosewill RX35-AT-IU SLV Aluminum 3.5" Silver USB 2.0 External Enclosure

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

The IDE cable won't see the drive, but, when using the cable and two drives are plugged up, they both must be properly set.

Well, the drive being off, while plugged up, won't affect anything, as long as you are not turning it on/off with the rig turned on.

 

[TheMajor]

It should normally power down by itself. Make sure there is no pagefile on the disk, and disable system recovery on the disk.

 

[fairfieldfalconsfan]

I don't want to use an external enclosure as I will be booting from this kinda often and would rather it be inside.

I don't have these switches ordered yet but here's what happened yesterday. I had cloned 1 HD onto the other (kinda like dual-boot but with basically the same system) and then had them plugged in as follows:

Original HD - Master end of IDE cable, jumper set to master, no power plugged in

2nd HD - Slave plug on IDE cable, jumper set to master, power plugged in

When I turned on the PC it booted fine but then I saw the hard drive light on the front of my PC was staying on constantly and the PC was a bit slow and lagging. So I shut it down and switched it so the 2nd HD was plugged in the master plug on the end of the IDE cable. Then when I fired it up it worked fine, the hard drive light wasn't on the whole time and the system was faster.

I figured that it was maybe trying to find the master or something, but I had the jumper set to master. I just thought of the fact that on the HD sticker it says to take the jumper completely off for master and that on the actual HD chassis(?) the little letters had master being put the jumpers in the middle.

I talked to a guy at a local PC shop and he said I might have to go into BIOS and change settings in there but I am not very comfortable messing with settings like that.

I may try to change the jumpers around and get back to you guys if it works. I have to go to work now but thanks for all the advice so far.

 

[TheMajor]

You should set the second disk to Slave. It should still boot from it if you set the right boot order in your BIOS (1st=1st disk, 2nd=2nd disk).

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

+1 on major.