🚀 go-pugleaf

Dane <localhost@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:381B118D.3F46@127.0.0.1...
> Stephen Anderson wrote:
>> reply.to@NG.please (Ross) wrote

>>> I've just installed removable hard disk cradles so I can put a removable
>>> (second) hard disk in each PC.   So far, I've been turning the PC off for
>>> safety before pulling out the hard disc cradle. However, it would be a lot
>>> more convenient if I could treat it like a floppy - ie, so long as the drive
>>> is not actually writing to disk at the time, can you pull the disk out while
>>> the PC and Windows are still powered up?

>>> Is this OK?   Won't hurt the hard disk, I hope?

>> My cradles have key switches on the front.  When the key
>> is turned to the remove position, all power is cut to the drive.
>> Surely this is the same as having a sudden power outage, or
>> if you turn off the pc. So I can't see how this would do anything
>> to the drive that turning off the computer doesn't already do.

>> However I can't see how you could hot swap a new
>> drive back into the craddle without rebooting the OS.

> What would happen if the drives that you are using
> are exactly the same size (and model number).

That shouldnt be necessary if removable mode
is properly supported for a particular drive.

> Jaz drives (1GB or 2GB) are removable (hot swappable if
> you wish) and the HDD caddie (cradle, whatever) are similar.

Yes, but thats because the driver supports that removable feature.

> The trick as I see it is to get the OS to understand that the
> drive (non-boot drive) is a "removable" not "fixed" hard drive.

Yes, but the driver for the particular drive also needs to be able
to do the extra stuff thats necessary with a removable drive.

> If the driver were "AUTO" detected, or if the parameters were set
> as a result of an auto detect at one time in the BIOS, then installing
> another drive with different paramters would cause problems,

Not necessarily. If the removable mode is fully supported, all
the driver has to do is reinitialise the drive after the new one has
been plugged in, just like it normally initialises a drive a boot time.
That really just needs some mechanism like say the key switch
instructing the driver that its time to do a full reinitialise again. And
that just goes thru the size and config check the boot init does again.

> so the drives at minimum have to be identical in terms of paramters,
> or perhaps the "volume" number needs to be the same.

Not if the drive is reinitialised fully again.

Corse thats not going to work with the C drive, only extra physical
drives. By definition swapping the boot drive needs an OS reboot.