Unplugging HD Cables

[radiot]

Howdy folks,

I run two drives off my mobo, one sata (1), one IDE (0). The bios won't allow me to set SATA to 0. (How come?) Therefore, I am plugging and unplugging HD's to boot to various OS's.. I am wondering if I could unplug only the power cable to the IDE drive, leaving the data cable attached, since it is the fragile cable. Will this damage anything?

Thanks

[noahawk]

No, it shouldn't damage anything with the system. Unplugging either cable should achieve the same result.

[studiot]

You could just add some lines to your boot.ini, unless one of the OS is Vista. Then it is a trifle more complicated.

[Ironsnipe]

In BIOS, sometimes you have to choose SCSI to boot into your SATA drive. Try different settings like that. It doesn't hurt. Also make sure your BIOS is up to date with the current version. Also, what MOBO do you have?

[Bill_Marsden]

Since you're swapping drive cable anyhow, you could get a removable hard drive bay with two cartridges. This would simplify the process enormously.

Of course, this would eliminate one or the other interfaces, so the hard drive might also need to be changed. So far I've avoided SATA.