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Stray Dog Joined: 28 Sep 2002 Posts: 37

Hello all!

Can anyone tell me if it is a bad idea to have a hard drive in your system with the IDE cable always connected but no power connected (to the hard drive)?

I've built myself a little "hard drive selection device" this way by putting toggle switches in-line on the power to the hard drive. I haven't seen any problems with system stability, but I'm wondering if I might be damaging the HD? I suppose this might happen if the HD can draw power through the IDE cable...?

(I've heard that you should not do this with, say, a USB device because the device can draw power through the USB cable even when not powered and this might damage the device.)

thanks!

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2003 6:44 pm Post subject:

you're fine.

there is no power delivered across a ribbon cable that can damage the mobo or drive.

if you're really concerned you can use your BIOS settings to disable the connected drives, while leaving power connected to them

Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2003 7:21 pm Post subject:

You're only flipping the switches when the computers off right? Otherwise that might screw something up good.
I don't think that will do any harm. You could be uncheap and buy removable hard drive trays, but hey that costs money right?

Stray Dog Joined: 28 Sep 2002 Posts: 37

Don't want to use drive trays because I've got each hd in an sound insulated case, and the cases would not fit in a drive tray...

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 12:06 pm Post subject:

You know they do make commercial hard drive selectors.

But you can use the Cheap $3 one that Kevin Rose created from TechTV. This way you can still access the data on each drive. His way involves putting a Single Throw double Pull Switch connected to the hard drive jumpers.

http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/howto/story/0,24330,3425846,00.html