Hard drive switcher, new technique?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
SATA drives can be hot booted, or whatever the term is, but the old ATA / IDE (PATA nowadays), ones won't. Having it connected on the IDE cable, but not powered is ok. No problem.

Well that changes things somewhat. I assume my new comp will have SATA drives, the old ones have IDE's. So the old comp can only switch on during bootup. I think I am right about the idea the second HD cannot be infected EVER if it's not powered up. So thats a safety net anyway. Even that is not 100% but it would defeat all but a few kinds of attacks. It would not defeat a rootkit but there are rootkit specialist software to remove them specifically. So I guess if a virus hit a raid array, all the drives would be screwed at the same time, eh.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well that changes things somewhat. I assume my new comp will have SATA drives, the old ones have IDE's. So the old comp can only switch on during bootup. I think I am right about the idea the second HD cannot be infected EVER if it's not powered up. So thats a safety net anyway. Even that is not 100% but it would defeat all but a few kinds of attacks. It wo ...[text shortened]... So I guess if a virus hit a raid array, all the drives would be screwed at the same time, eh.

1. A root kit cant get onto powered down HHDs either.
2. If you do power down one drive then your whole concurrent backup idea goes out the window.
3. Make sure you have your router to the internet configured properly (firewall and all), turn on Windows XPs firewall, be careful with emails with attachments, use firefox not explorer, never have open shares on your pc, use your head, and you should remain reasonably virus free.

You could of course run an antivirus and antispyware etc, but I cant stand the way they slow down my pc. I get particularly affected because I work with Java and most antivirus' insist on scanning all the java files extra slow!
Even if you choose not to have an antivirus running all the time, you can still do scans now and then to make sure. Its all about how important your data is.
These days blank CDs and DVDs are dirt cheap, so it is a good idea to cut things like photos to them every now and then. A virus cannot jump from your PC to a DVD in your drawer! Just make sure you make two copies if the data is really important to you.

I agree with your comments on HP. I would never want to have a Compaq, HP or IBM for a home PC. They tend to have incompatible parts, loads of junkware, etc. However in a corporate environment they are not so bad, they often have some functionality to allow network managers to manage them better.

Causes of HDD failure include:
1. Heat.
2. Physical shock (if you drop it etc).
3. Electrical damage (carefull how you touch it.) including unclean power / lightening etc.
4. Poor quality manufacturing.

Check whether your BIOS has SMART and enable it. Find a utility that can read the SMART data off your HDDs. It should be able to warn you when your drives are about to give out.

Originally posted by twhitehead
1. A root kit cant get onto powered down HHDs either.
2. If you do power down one drive then your whole concurrent backup idea goes out the window.
3. Make sure you have your router to the internet configured properly (firewall and all), turn on Windows XPs firewall, be careful with emails with attachments, use firefox not explorer, never have open shar ...[text shortened]... SMART data off your HDDs. It should be able to warn you when your drives are about to give out.

I'll check out the Smart thing. Is there any way to get into BIOS when XP is already up and running? Otherwise I have to reboot to get at the BIOS I think. I gave up on the Dells for one reason, I can't upgrade the RAM because it's RAMBUS and terribly expensive and you have to have two identical ones, like 2 512's or some such and they are about 4 times as expensive as regular ram. So when I ran into the problem of the color and resolution going to pot, like I said, 4 bit color and low res where I had to reboot to get back to normal res and nobody could figure out the cause, I just dumped the comps. BTW, I have a problem on the HP replacement comp, a mothballed comp my buddy gave me, its an ok machine, I think it has a gig of regular ram and its 3.2 Ghz so its reasonably fast and I had to reload XP at least on the one HD which is where I thought about the jumper switching thing, but a funny thing happens on that machine, I go to RHP and then to the blitz site and start playing blitz and three or four times this happens and ONLY when I am at the blitz site (at least so far): I am in the middle of a game and the computer totally turns off! It immediately reboots and comes back fine and firefox actually comes up with a restore previous session? message and it goes right back to the blitz site but of course its way too late to get back into the game. Any idea why that would happen? My only idea is maybe it has something to do with Java which you have to download I think or maybe flash, not sure which one. But have you ever heard of something like that happening but only at one specific part of a site?