Im not sure how to use this: I have recently upgraded my HD from 10Gig to
80 gig. I would like to use the 10 as slave and have option to use either
one on start up. The reason is that my son downloaded virus few times so
what I'm trying to acomplish is give him option when turning on the computer
to boot from the old 10Gig and I would boot from the new 80 gig so if he
downloads virus the 80 gig will not be affected.
Runyned:
Assuming your desktop computer has two available 5 1/4" bays, i.e., vacant
bays that you can utilize, you can equip your computer with two removable
hard drives in their mobile racks. By equipping your computer in this
fashion you will, for all practical purposes, be able to easily maintain a
near fail-safe backup system and at the same time be able to experiment with
different programs and configurations with the full realization that should
anything go awry you will be able to return to your original system and
configuration in a near-instant. And accomplish all this from the comfort of
your computer chair with no need to get inside your computer case to make
cable/power disconnects and connects. It's close to an ideal system for
many, if not most, desktop computer users and I can virtually guarantee that
once you begin working with this arrangement you'll never want to return to
the "old" way. It's that good.
The hard drives are housed in so-called mobile racks that fit in the 5 1/4"
bays of a desktop's computer case . The racks themselves are two-piece
affairs with the HD residing in a removable tray that slides in and out of
the rack. The beauty of this arrangement is that the drives can easily be
accessed from outside the computer case. Note that these mobile racks are
designed for desktop computers and not laptops/notebooks because of the
latter's size/weight considerations.
So by using a disk imaging program such as Symantec's Norton Ghost or
Acronis True Image or other disk imaging program, you can routinely clone
your day-to-day working hard drive to the second drive, thus having a
virtual bit-for-bit copy of that working drive. And through the use of
additional removable trays you're free to create additional clones on hard
drives that you can easily remove from the premises for near-absolute
security. Then again, you can use separate (limitless) hard drives for
whatever purposes you desire -- different operating systems, graphics, one
each for your children and for the visiting grandchild, etc. And you're free
to make clones of those drives if you so desire. And when the day comes that
one or another of your hard drives goes kaputski, it's a simple matter to
replace that drive from the comfort of your computer chair without having to
get inside your computer case.
As I stated, in my opinion the best arrangement is to have two removable
hard drives installed. However, if you have only a single 5 1/4" bay
available to house one mobile rack, you can still profitably use a single
removable hard drive. In this instance you would have your day-to-day
working hard drive installed as an internal drive and the second drive would
be your removable drive. The internal drive (in effect, your C: drive) would
be configured as Secondary Master while the removable drive would be your
Primary Master. During normal operation the removable drive would be
electrically disconnected from the machine by a simple turn of the mobile
rack's keylock to the OFF position. (For additional safety, you could even
physically disconnect the removable drive from the computer by a simple pull
of the rack's handle. No more difficult then opening a desk drawer). So the
system would boot to your internal hard drive. When a time comes where you
want to boot from the removable drive you would simply connect it by turning
the keylock to the ON position. Since it's configured as Primary Master, the
computer will boot to that drive.
Do you see the enormous advantages to this hardware configuration? Now you
can safely play around with a wide variety of programs and configurations on
your day-to-day working hard drive, confident that if anything goes awry
(even to the extent that your drive becomes physically or electronically
defective), you have a perfectly good bootable clone that is virtually
instantly at hand. And you can easily clone back to your internal drive
(assuming it's not defective) the contents of the previously cloned
removable drive.
There's a wide variety of mobile racks available ranging in cost from about
$15 (all plastic) to $50 and up for the all-aluminum models. Interestingly
enough, in my experience the cheapos work just as well as the more expensive
models. Installing them is no more difficult then installing a CD-ROM or
other 5 1/4" device. You can do a Google search of "mobile racks" to peruse
the many different available models.
I can assure you that once you begin working with removable hard drives
(preferably two), you'll have one and only one regret -- that you didn't
have this hardware configuration on your previous desktop computers.
Art
Thanks Art, I.m all over this. Can.t wait to get set up!!!
