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#1 2006-01-07 20:45:40

lilsirecho
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Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

On my a7v333 arch system, I use an 80pin(s/b 80 strand) cable for the primary HDD interface.

I set each HDD to "master" jumper, HDD "A" and HDD "B".

To boot on HDD "A" I remove power from HDD "B".

To boot on HDD "B" I remove power from HDD "A".

I am wondering whether this interface introduces any problems with the booted system since the IDE cable is connected to both HDD devices at all times...one having power and the other disconnected from power.

I would expect that this procedure could be extended to more HDD devices since only one is energized.

This allows the running of a single HDD while booted in OS.  Other HDD interfaces with USB are also available in arch OS which can be powered up and called via hwdetect as needed.

This procedure eliminates the selection of boot drive in bios and prevents access to the unpowered drive, obviously.

I have not tried applying power to the unpowered drive (jumpered to slave)after booting on the powered drive.  I expect that would be a no-no.

I also expect that should I connect the two CDROMS in my system to a USB adapter with a male to 2 female IDE connector, that this arrangement would allow removal of power to both CDroms until their use is required, the USB cable being connected at all times but power switched on at the adapter as needed.
This technique reduces power used while running arch OS.

My mobo has no select for USB boot which I would like.

USB adapter for IDE with IDE cableadapter allows the connection of ata133IDE HDD cable ("80 pin") to two HDD's.  If power is applied to just one of the HDD's at a time, the same selection is possible.

In all cases, the power setup for the HDD's must occur before power is applied to the system.  This does not apply to the USB case, if the USB cable is disconnected while changing the power to the HDD's within the USB-IDE adapter setup.

The molex connectors get exercised when changing power connections but cable extensions allow for a second molex connector for power after the first has wornout.
My HDD's are accessible externally to allow for power connections.

It may be possible to extend the 80 strand cable on the primary IDE bus using a male to 2 female IDE adapter cable or two of same and allow for additional HDD connections selectable by connecting power to the desired HDD.  Thus with two cables added, up to four HDD' s are selectable.

There may be an impact on HDD speeds with this arrangement but it is probably not significant.

It is probable that modifying the power cable molex arrangement to permit a different connector to interchange power would be desired.  The molex connectors are hard to insert and remove.

Anyhow, reducing power consumption is worth doing at today's cost for power.

A switching system to do the selection is not recommended since it could be switched during operations.....baaaaad!

I have used this idea for several months with the primary IDE cable and haven't verified any difficulties with the booted OS.

Like Steve Martin, I'm a wild and crazy guy!!!!


lol


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#2 2006-01-09 10:21:57

Kern
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2005-02-09
Posts: 464

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Why not buy a couple of caddies  for the drives and just clip them in or out depending on what you want.

Set one caddy on the primary IDE connector the other on the Secondary.
Set both drives to cable-select.

This way your Master drive is selected by which bay you put what drive into.

This saves wear and tear on cables and would also allow you to mount the second drive should you wish to transfer files etc.

With regards to powersaving, a drive uses between 0.something and 10ish watts.

So in realworld terms you would be better turning the monitor off, rather than leaving in standby, or maybe switching an extra lightbulb off around the house.
In terms of security, if it aint plugged in, it aint (software) accessible, which is great smile

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#3 2006-01-09 12:58:54

Gullible Jones
Member
Registered: 2004-12-29
Posts: 4,863

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Hmm... Have you tried pressing F9 on boot? That should let you select which device to boot from... A lot of modern BIOSs have this functionality, though it might be a different key with yours.

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#4 2006-01-09 16:23:06

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Moved to kernel/hardware forum

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#5 2006-01-09 17:40:34

lilsirecho
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Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Much obliged for the comments from several gentlemen.

One question I raised was what effect on performance has the unused drive, which has its IDE cable connected in the 3 connector cable?

Will try the F key selection soon which is limited to two drives, master and slave.   I assume it puts me into Bios?

If no impact on performance, the use of multiple drives seems likely with added connectors on the IDE cable, all connected HDD's set to master and selected with power connected.  Thus not limited to two drives.

In the USB approach, a similar cable arrangement seems possible and power-off is switchable so selection by switching seems viable.

Thank you for your ideas and comments:D .


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#6 2006-01-09 18:15:20

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

It is probable that only the 5volt power be changed to select which HDD is in use.......


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#7 2006-01-09 18:23:11

Gullible Jones
Member
Registered: 2004-12-29
Posts: 4,863

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

lilsirecho wrote:

Will try the F key selection soon which is limited to two drives, master and slave. I assume it puts me into Bios?

No, it gives a single menu, at least on my machine - although that is part of the BIOS, I suppose.

('Delete' is what gets you to the BIOS on most machines these days, IIRC, though on some brands it's F1. Also, as I said, F9 might be specific to my BIOS, so try all the other F keys if F9 doesn't work.)

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#8 2006-01-09 21:45:51

lilsirecho
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Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Have progressed to this condition....

Added a male connector to IDE cable half-way between the wider pair of existing connectors.

Connected the male to the USB adapter female and used the female connectors for other HDD insertion.  Power cable connected to one HDD at a time via USB adapter.

Ran fstab to enter /dev params for two devices...a vfat HDD and a ntfs HDD.

Connected both to the IDE ribbon but fed power to only one at a time.

Can mount either HDD as determined by the powered HDD.

Experimented with CDROM Sonycd/RW/DVDrom crx320a and was able to recognize it as DVD and the disc entered was recognized and could be searched.

Don't think a DVD running from USB gives good results due to transfer times.

I am hoping that 5volt switching will work to enable the desired HDD and will probably try that soon.  The technique should allow many IDE connected HDD's to be selectable on the USB system...USB 2.0 fastest.

I have yet to install a linux HDD into the mix, mebbe soon.  8)


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#9 2006-01-09 22:19:33

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Connected three HDD's to USB adapter, ntfs, vfat, and ext3linux.

The ext3 linux mounts when energized and opens and is entered in fstab as /dev/sdb3 /mnt/sdb3 ext3 defaults 0  0........................................

One further test with the 5V switching to go!


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#10 2006-01-10 02:51:53

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Have three HDD's in a selectable USB connection using a switched 5Volt system.

The USB adapter has a power on switch which deenergizes all power to the three HDD's.  The 5Volts out put of the USB adapter passes through a switch to select the HDD to be mounted.  After switching to the desired HDD, the USB adapter power is switched "on".

The device is mounted via kwik disc in my system after the USB power is applied.

I expect that a CD and/ or DVD rom can be added and selected as are the HDD's.

Thesedrives are connected at this time with a 40 strand IDE cable modified for the setup.  Additional connectors could be added to the 3 connector IDE cable to accomodate more HDD's or cdroms(whatever).  The power cabling here installed is limited to three drives, having made mods to HDD/cdrom power extensions to enable the 12 volt connection to all but switch the 5v connection to one-at-a-time.  Then the power drain is just that of one drive(perhaps a nominal amount of bias on the 12V bus from the non-used drives , .nothing like a running disc!).

Extensible arrangements are possible for the primary IDE bus as well, but, I feel it would be imperative to set up a latching arrangement to prevent switching off the 5volts on the operating system HDD while in operation.
Such a system would allow the HDD's of the USB system described to be installed into the primary bus, as may be desired.  Thus, many HDD's available for booting on a selected basis with all connected as primary or even no jumper...and no bios changes involved.

The use of 80 strand cables could improve the performance for high DMA drives altho the writer believes a short 40 strand cable is not deleterious.

Anyhow, I like the versatility and will be trying it out for a while.  One note of interest, the drive in use for the OS runs continuously, all other drives on USB can be shutdown until needed, big power saving.

Power costs are rising fast...go LED!!


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#11 2006-01-12 01:33:39

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Have arranged the cabling to accept 5 IDE elements, 2 atapi roms and 3 HDD ext3, ntfs, and vfat.

I found a post by SNOWMAN which aided in getting the CD/DVD roms to be recognized.  Kudos to the grad student.  I have Kernel 2.6.15-2 installed and have dbus and hal daemons. 

He recommends entering the devices in fstab as /dev/scd0, cdrom_ext and dvd_ext ,with appropriate entry data...ro,user,etc.

Each rom is ID'ed with /dev/scd0 in my system since only one is energized at a time.  I have not attempted an rw activity on the roms altho they are both R/W units.  I assume I will need to change ro to rw to start with.

His reference included  entering as root ...mount /dev/pts and...... mount /dev/shm.

This permitted the mount of  video DVD's and Data DVD's and data CD's.

The cabling has been modified to accept 5 IDE devices with the 5volt line being switched to the desired unit before applying the USB adapter power switch.

This system will work on the primary cable as well but some means to prevent live switching on the OS HDD selected is imperative.  This would permit more than two HDD's on the primary cabling permitting boot with many alternate drives.  My computer case has room to accomodate several additional drives.

It may seem that the HDD's thusly connected would have longer life but some arguments to the contrary have been raised.

The power requirements for the computer thusly outfitted would be lessened and the heat load reduced.

I have yet to modify an 80 strand cable to apply to the primary bus, maybe soon!


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#12 2006-01-12 02:31:54

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Audio cd's can be entered into the cdrom scd0 and the KDE cd window opens along with the media window.  The CD plays but no audio is possible without connecting to the analog/digital terminals or listening with headphones.  Elect performs correctly from the Kde window as well as pause and stop.

So far, so good....


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#13 2006-01-12 04:44:22

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Placed rw in place of ro in fstab and burned a CD via the USB system using k3b.

I normally select  STORAGE MEDIA in KDE Systems Menu and right click on the CD media icon displayed in the media window to use the media.

In running k3b, it recognized the USBCDROM and burned the data I dragged into the input file.  There was no need to search for the device.  When the CD disc was entered in the CD, the media window opened.

All functions were normal in k3b even to the trumpeting at the end!!!

I assume the USBDVD will do likewise via my setup in USB-IDE adapter with 5 IDE devices connected, only one receiving 5V.


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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#14 2006-01-12 18:03:32

lilsirecho
Veteran
Registered: 2003-10-24
Posts: 5,000

Re: HDD select for boot and USB HDD selection scheme

Recap of the posted activity.

An IDE related USB interface was implemented using a powered USB to IDE adapter.  A 40 strand IDE cable was modified to include 5 female connectors and one male connector.  The USB adapter operates from 12 volts adapter power(could be powered from computer) and has a built in power control switch turning on and off the IDE interface power.  IDE power was applied through four "Y"power cables modified to allow switching of the 5v (red leads) with a five position switch.  Thus, 12 volt power is applied at all times but only one IDE device receives 5volt power(or none, if the adapter is turned to "off".


The purpose of the experiment was to enable USB control of the IDE devices, providing that only one on the given USB bus is operative.  This provides for IDE selection manually and controls power dissipation.  It reduces power dissipated in the computer case by removing HDD elements from the enclosure.  IDE devices thus connected provide storage with various filesystems at the behest of the user.  CD/DVD R/W is enabled on roms thusly utilized.

The use of USB to IDE adapters introduces an overhead which cuts performance perhaps 10% on the USB bus in use.

As to the use of 40 strand IDE cable, I theorize that it does not affect performance since only one HDD is being addressed by the system and "crosstalk" cannot be a problem since ther is no other activity on the cable.

Carrying this premise one step further, I expect that use of a 40 strand cable on the primary IDE bus is acceptable if no "slave" IDE is energized when using 133 speed HDD's.  Thereby, it should be possible to provide a similar switching system as previously described for the IDE power cabling to select the HDD to boot with a 5v control switch, all HDD thusly connected to be "primary" connected devices prior to computer turn on.  This would reduce power required "inside" the case, heat load reduced and longer life for the components.  Many devices seem possible via the IDE cabling as modified with additional connectors and suitable selector switches.  (Perhaps a set of HDD's on the cable could be set to "slave" but this implies a "master" which would not be present in that event).

Carrying this technique one step further, it may be possible to utilize hdparm control on the IDE devices now connectable to the "secondary" IDE bus.  A similar IDE cabling and power control system could be provided on devices connected to HDC "primary", and hdparm -Y /dev/hdc would allow power control of any drive connected as Hdc.  Thus, one and only one drive runs on any IDE related bus and power control is provided for user-related purposes.  The cabling is again 40strand IDE cable.

I am not familiar with the full use of hdparm in ArchOS system and I invite comments on any and all aspects of this arrangement.


Prediction...This year will be a very odd year!
Hard work does not kill people but why risk it: Charlie Mccarthy
A man is not complete until he is married..then..he is finished.
When ALL is lost, what can be found? Even bytes get lonely for a little bit!     X-ray confirms Iam spineless!

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