🚀 go-pugleaf

In aus.computers.ibm-pc Ross <reply.to@NG.please> 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?

hurt? trash more like it heh

neither ide nor most scsi is hot swappable as is, as the other poster pointed out no software support for it either in
doze,

its what you would call a really really bad idea

bah

On 28 Oct 1999 13:20:27 GMT, bah <not@here.com> wrote:

>: Is this OK?   Won't hurt the hard disk, I hope?
>
>hurt? trash more like it heh
>
>neither ide nor most scsi is hot swappable as is, as the other poster pointed out no software support for it either in
>doze,
>
>its what you would call a really really bad idea

I think you exaggerate.  Are you just assuming, or have you got some
hard info on the topic?  The reason I asked was that I've already done
a "hot remove" once, in an absent moment, with no problem.  It didn't
force a reboot, nor did it damage any of the files on the disc.    I
can't see why it would trash the disc if there wasn't active data
transfer.  After all we are talking about non-contact heads and
automatic parking.

As far as the forced reboot goes, Geoff Dyer may be right about a
reboot on a "hot insert" - I've only tried the "hot remove".

I also note that Win98 insists on giving the slave disc the attributes
'Removable' and 'nonDMA', whereas the primary master has the opposite
attributes.   I have installed a slave disc on 2 Win98 systems which
have completely different brands of hardware throughout, yet they
behave the same in this respect.  In other words, it appears that
Win98 has been written to cater for removable HDs (at least to some
degree - it recognises that such beasts exist).  As a result, I'm not
convinced that Geoff's comment (that the OS hasn't been told
gracefully about on the loss of a drive) is relevant either.

Still, I'd sure hate to scramble 13G of data.  For the time being I'll
swap it cold.

Cheers
Ross

bah <not@here.com> wrote:

>In aus.computers.ibm-pc Ross <reply.to@NG.please> 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?
>
>hurt? trash more like it heh
>
>neither ide nor most scsi is hot swappable as is, as the other poster pointed out no software support for it either in
>doze,
>
>its what you would call a really really bad idea

True. 

However, there's a "Removable" check box on a later win9x drivers
(Device Manager, Disk Drives, Properties, Settings), so I wonder wether
this actually effects VCache's operation. ie allow you to hot swap an
IDE hard disk...

But then again, many power supplies won't like the current surge as you
insert the drive - ie reboot the PC. Perhaps you could experiment with
an external enclosure with it's own power supply.
  __   __  ________________________________________________________
 //)) //))| Richard RUDEK. MicroDek. Chatswood, Sydney. Australia. |
//\\ //\\ |http://microdek.homepage.com/                           |
          |________________________________________________________|

In aus.computers.ibm-pc ross <reply.to@newsgroup.please> wrote:

: I think you exaggerate.  Are you just assuming, or have you got some
: hard info on the topic?  The reason I asked was that I've already done
: a "hot remove" once, in an absent moment, with no problem.  It didn't
: force a reboot, nor did it damage any of the files on the disc.    I
: can't see why it would trash the disc if there wasn't active data
: transfer.  After all we are talking about non-contact heads and
: automatic parking.

i dont think i exaggerate at all, ide, the standard, doesnt support hot swapping, its much more likely that you will
damage the controllers on either the mboard or the hdd than actually damage the files as they arent designed for hot swap
operation

: I also note that Win98 insists on giving the slave disc the attributes
: 'Removable' and 'nonDMA', whereas the primary master has the opposite
: attributes.   I have installed a slave disc on 2 Win98 systems which
: have completely different brands of hardware throughout, yet they
: behave the same in this respect.  In other words, it appears that
: Win98 has been written to cater for removable HDs (at least to some
: degree - it recognises that such beasts exist).  As a result, I'm not
: convinced that Geoff's comment (that the OS hasn't been told
: gracefully about on the loss of a drive) is relevant either.

cant say id really place too much importance on what values windows places on the drive myself, also removeable doesnt
mean that its hot swap removeable, 

think about a few things, when have you seen an ide hdd advertised as hot swappable? why do people pay soooo much money
for hotswappable raid? and here you are seeming to be getting away with it here on the cheap and no, its not because its a
secret people have been keeping from you

or try this, try ringing up a pc shop and saying that you would like to warranty one of the drives you have because it
failed because you were pulling it out hot, its likely to void your warranty but worse,-- its likely that an swat team
from various hdd manufacturers are going to come over and kill you in your sleep

: Still, I'd sure hate to scramble 13G of data.  For the time being I'll
: swap it cold.

good idea

bah

I accidental did it once and yes the disk was trashed, not the data
but the electronics.

>In aus.computers.ibm-pc Ross <reply.to@NG.please> 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?
>
>hurt? trash more like it heh
>
>neither ide nor most scsi is hot swappable as is, as the other poster pointed out no software support for it either in
>doze,
>
>its what you would call a really really bad idea
>
>bah

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 11:58:47 GMT, 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?

Well, as long as it's done gently it probably won't hurt the disk
(remember though it *is* still spinning while there's power to it),
but there's not much point because (depending on the OS) the machine
will probably reboot on the spot. (My BH6 motherboard, no fancy power
management and running Win98 certainly does so on at least one of
removal/ insertion of the disk.) 

With a floppy/ CD/ ZIP/ LS-120 or whatever, you're not removing the
drive, just the disk/ disc. With a hard disk in a mobile rack, you're
removing the whole drive assembly (and a drive letter) without the
software being notified gracefully. 

--
Geoff 
(to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address)

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?
> 
> Ross

Read the cradle and motherboard documents.
Some have appropriate electronics and connectors and are recognised
as such, many don't.
I haven't seen any hot connect electronics that didn't prominently
proclaim it to the world.
If it is just a passthrough connection it is not a good idea.
A lot of hotswap capable equipment likely to have buffering problems
has drivers that perform tidyup of the system before removal and after
insert.
Either user software triggered or some button and 'safe' light on the
equipment.

Even windows prefers the 'safe to powerdown' route.
A Removable tag on properies should modify the buffering behaviour.

If in doubt power down, a few minutes to reboot vs hours and dollars
to rebuild or replace the drive and data.

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 11:58:47 GMT, 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?
>
>Ross

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.




Cheers

***NOTE***********************************************
Remove N0_SP2M from my return address if sending email
The address should read: dechah at bigfoot dot com
******************************************************

Stephen Anderson
Intellectual Property Advisor
BHP
Melbourne
Australia

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 15:18:56 GMT, x@invalid.zeta.org.au (Richard
RUDEK) wrote:

>However, there's a "Removable" check box on a later win9x drivers
>(Device Manager, Disk Drives, Properties, Settings), so I wonder wether
>this actually effects VCache's operation. ie allow you to hot swap an
>IDE hard disk...
>
>But then again, many power supplies won't like the current surge as you
>insert the drive - ie reboot the PC. Perhaps you could experiment with
>an external enclosure with it's own power supply.

Ouch. I hadn't thought about the spike possibility. 
FWIW, I have seen a mobile rack in a shop (forgotten which one, might
have been NaSa in Sydney), which had drivers to allow hot-swapping. I
was just looking at the outside of the cardboard box, so I have no
idea how they handled the power transition (maybe by software or off
the keylock?). 

--
Geoff 
(to e-mail me, remove any instances of "-nospam" from my address)

It will harm the hard drive as it has not been depowered and parked by
removing it whilst powered.. The idea of the removable means you don't have
to dissassemble the computer, just power down and remove...

golfpro@eisa.net.au


Ross <reply.to@NG.please> wrote in message
news:3816c9c7.10483959@news.labyrinth.net.au...
> 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?
>
> Ross

waits anxiously for the next post from Ross asking how to recover the lost
data on his supposed hot swappable IDE or SCSI drive...

laffs

--

Regards
Kevin Upton
http://start.at/nivek
http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/stats/team/team_38411.html


Ross <reply.to@NG.please> wrote in message
news:3816c9c7.10483959@news.labyrinth.net.au...
> 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?
>
> Ross

Stephen Anderson wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 11:58:47 GMT, 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?
> >
> >Ross
> 
> 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). Jaz drives (1GB or 2GB) are removable
(hot swappable if you wish) and the HDD caddie (cradle, whatever)
are similar. 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.

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

-Dane

> 
> Cheers
> 
> ***NOTE***********************************************
> Remove N0_SP2M from my return address if sending email
> The address should read: dechah at bigfoot dot com
> ******************************************************
> 
> Stephen Anderson
> Intellectual Property Advisor
> BHP
> Melbourne
> Australia

-- 
Anti-Spamming measures. To reply to me, remove nospam.
and ROT-13 my email address: qnar@nospam.fbhguynaq.arg

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.