System:
I have two identical hard drives with identical bootable OS's,
one hard drive containing the backup image of the other
in case one of the hard drives fails. Each is connected as
Master on one of the two IDE channels of a PCI controller
card made by SIIG.

Problem:
Since the 2 hard drives are identical (same manufacturer,
same model, same capacity), they have the same model no.,
and the hard drive boot sequence listed in the BIOS of the
motherboard cannot indicate which is which. I can only be
sure which one booted by checking a folder which I placed
on the desktop which has the nickname of the hard drive. If
it indicates the wrong hard drive, I have to restart and reverse
the boot sequence. Since one is to act as the backup medium
for the image of the other, the chance exists that someday I'll
backup the backup, and all recent changes will be lost.

If the SIIG controller card's BIOS could indicate to the
motherboard's BIOS on which channel each hard drive is
connected, and if the motherboard's BIOS displayed that
information, all would be well. But they don't.

The core problem is that the two hard drives are identical.
Short of simply buying another hard drive of different
capacity (and therefore having a slightly different model no.)
to tell them apart, is it possible to "flash" a hard drive's
model no. to something else? That is, could the the hard drives
be made to appear in the motherboard's BIOS boot sequence
as, say "Active" and "Backup", instead of them both being
listed as "6Y060P0"?

Conceivably, in the future I'd want one hard drive to contain
a Windows system and the other a Linux system, each bootable,
and I'd switch between the two by simply restarting and
reversing their position in the BIOS' boot sequence. One
hard drive's model no. could be flashed the nickname "Billy"
and the other "Linus", natch. Could this be done?


*TimDaniels*

Even the drive serial number, and the OS volume serial numbers,
are the same???

Since this is just for backup, have you given any thought
to just using a RAID 1 controller? Possibly, even a RAID 1
adapter like the DupliDisk from ARCO? For that, having two
perfectly identical drives is a plus.

Timothy Daniels wrote:
>
> I can only be
> sure which one booted by checking a folder which I placed
> on the desktop which has the nickname of the hard drive. If
> it indicates the wrong hard drive, I have to restart and reverse
> the boot sequence. Since one is to act as the backup medium
> for the image of the other, the chance exists that someday I'll
> backup the backup, and all recent changes will be lost.
>
>

"Timothy Daniels" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:L_WdnW4DRcLg7wqiRVn-(E-Mail Removed)
> System:
> I have two identical hard drives with identical bootable OS's,
> one hard drive containing the backup image of the other
> in case one of the hard drives fails. Each is connected as
> Master on one of the two IDE channels of a PCI controller
> card made by SIIG.
>
> Problem:
> Since the 2 hard drives are identical (same manufacturer,
> same model, same capacity), they have the same model no.,
> and the hard drive boot sequence listed in the BIOS of the
> motherboard cannot indicate which is which. I can only be
> sure which one booted by checking a folder which I placed
> on the desktop which has the nickname of the hard drive. If
> it indicates the wrong hard drive, I have to restart and reverse
> the boot sequence. Since one is to act as the backup medium
> for the image of the other, the chance exists that someday I'll
> backup the backup, and all recent changes will be lost.
>
> If the SIIG controller card's BIOS could indicate to the
> motherboard's BIOS on which channel each hard drive is
> connected, and if the motherboard's BIOS displayed that
> information, all would be well. But they don't.

Well, unless the bios changes the menu order from time to time,
it does. Only problem is, when it shows the default you won't
know which one it is that it is displaying.

>
> The core problem is that the two hard drives are identical.
> Short of simply buying another hard drive of different
> capacity (and therefore having a slightly different model no.)
> to tell them apart, is it possible to "flash" a hard drive's
> model no. to something else? That is, could the the hard drives
> be made to appear in the motherboard's BIOS boot sequence
> as, say "Active" and "Backup", instead of them both being
> listed as "6Y060P0"?

Simply find out which one is which and make a mental note.

>
> Conceivably, in the future I'd want one hard drive to contain
> a Windows system and the other a Linux system, each bootable,
> and I'd switch between the two by simply restarting and
> reversing their position in the BIOS' boot sequence. One
> hard drive's model no. could be flashed the nickname "Billy"
> and the other "Linus", natch. Could this be done?

No.

And your argument/solution stinks. You already have your solution
re backups in that difference file.
You could change volume names or use volume serial numbers if you
think that is a bit too risky.

The boot menu is another issue that doesn't change anything
in establishing what's what once you are booted.

>
>
> *TimDaniels*

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Hash: SHA1

In article <L_WdnW4DRcLg7wqiRVn-(E-Mail Removed)>,
Timothy Daniels <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>The core problem is that the two hard drives are identical.
>Short of simply buying another hard drive of different
>capacity (and therefore having a slightly different model no.)
>to tell them apart, is it possible to "flash" a hard drive's
>model no. to something else? That is, could the the hard drives
>be made to appear in the motherboard's BIOS boot sequence
>as, say "Active" and "Backup", instead of them both being
>listed as "6Y060P0"?

I don't know about a utility that'd flash the firmware...but if the chip
holding the firmware is removable, you should be able to pull it and
reprogram it after digging around for the ID string. I have some old
Seagate Barracudas that identify themselves as "Compaq ST15150W"s...whether
it was Seagate or Compaq that set up that ID string, I couldn't say.

_/_ Scott Alfter (address in header doesn't receive mail)
/ v \ send email to $firstname@$lastname.us
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ pkill -9 /bin/laden >What is the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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"Walt" wrote:
> Even the drive serial number, and the OS volume serial numbers,
> are the same???

I dunno. How are they normally accessed? All I know
is that the model no. of the drive appears in the BIOS boot
sequence (priority list of devices to try to boot from), and
at that point, I can't tell one HD from the other, so it's hard
to be sure which HD will boot.


> Since this is just for backup, have you given any thought
> to just using a RAID 1 controller?


This is a different kind of backup from RAID. RAID
preserves the current state, and I want to preserve the
state from a day ago and a week ago.


*TimDaniels*

You make an excellent point. I am sure the list of
drives doesn't change order from one boot to the next.
Once one figures out that the first drive in the list
is the "master" drive, and the second drive in the list
is the "slave" drive, it should always be that order.

Folkert Rienstra wrote:
>
> The boot menu is another issue that doesn't change anything
> in establishing what's what once you are booted.

Uh huhh.... like remembering that the evil twin is always
the one on the right.... until you switch him to the left.

*TimDaniels*


"Walt" wrote:
> You make an excellent point. I am sure the list of
> drives doesn't change order from one boot to the next.
> Once one figures out that the first drive in the list
> is the "master" drive, and the second drive in the list
> is the "slave" drive, it should always be that order.
>
> Folkert Rienstra wrote:
> >
> > The boot menu is another issue that doesn't change anything
> > in establishing what's what once you are booted.

"Folkert Rienstra" replied, sort of:
> "Timothy Daniels"
> > If the SIIG controller card's BIOS could indicate to the
> > motherboard's BIOS on which channel each hard drive is
> > connected, and if the motherboard's BIOS displayed that
> > information, all would be well. But they don't.
>
> Well, unless the bios changes the menu order from time to time,
> it does. Only problem is, when it shows the default you won't
> know which one it is that it is displaying.


If the motherboard's BIOS could display the channel no.
that each HD was connected to, I could put the active HD
on channel 0 and the backup on channel 1 and always know
from just looking at the displayed boot sequence whether I'd
gotten the right boot sequence for what I want to do without
having to boot-up first to see. From what Dell's "Advanced
Support" reps tell me, enough information is supplied by its
recent BIOSs so that the HDs could be distinguished, but not
in the older BIOSs.


> Simply find out which one is which and make a mental note.


Mental notes are bad at 3:00 a.m. and at other times as well.


> > ..... One hard drive's model no. could be flashed the nickname
> > "Billy" and the other "Linus", natch. Could this be done?
>
> No.


OK, that's all I wanted to know. Thanks. I'm off to buy
a different hard drive.


*TimDaniels*

Timothy Daniels <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message news:N7ydnWY69pPamgWiRVn-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Walt wrote

>> Even the drive serial number, and the OS
>> volume serial numbers, are the same???

Corse not. The problem is that those arent visible
in the bios when selecting which drive to boot.
Only the model number is visible at that level.

> I dunno. How are they normally accessed? All I know
> is that the model no. of the drive appears in the BIOS
> boot sequence (priority list of devices to try to boot
> from), and at that point, I can't tell one HD from the
> other, so it's hard to be sure which HD will boot.

Yes, you really need a proper boot manager which
allows you to put any text you like on each entry.

>> Since this is just for backup, have you given
>> any thought to just using a RAID 1 controller?

> This is a different kind of backup from RAID. RAID
> preserves the current state, and I want to preserve
> the state from a day ago and a week ago.

Sure, and that can be safer. Particularly if you manage to
stuff up say an updates install etc you can just use the copy.
If it was done with RAID, both copys would be affected.