[Herefordshire] VectorLinux Finally installed !!

[Andrew Hodgson]

Hi,
 
If I got anything else it would have to be a PCI card because I don't
think I have any free IDE on this mobo, can't remember but it has
inbuilt SATA and I use a SATA drive on it.  It does also have an inbuilt
RAID controler.  Will either have to look at the book or open the
machine up.  The IDE is currently taken up by the DVD and DVDR drives.
 
Andrew.
________________________________

From: herefordshire-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk
[mailto:herefordshire-bounces at mailman.lug.org.uk] On Behalf Of
EdwardFW at aol.com
Sent: 21 January 2005 13:37
To: herefordshire at mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: RE: [Herefordshire] VectorLinux Finally installed !! 


Greetings and thanks to all for welcoming me and tolerating the increase
in the group's average age and its decrease in average intelligence and
Linux ability

Re Andrew's desire for speed and for seperate drives, I have had great
benefits both re bootable operating system drives and back-up and
generally shifting lots of MB about, from using caddies - but I am still
on PATA, no SATA. There must be people on the internet who have tried
SATA though.

I too like the idea of seperate drives for seperate operating systems
and have been facing up to hard drive technology stopping me from using
caddies. But I thought you Linux people - we Linux people - were always
booting to and from all sorts of things and places. Can't the loader
thing be configured to ignore drives etc?

Or - on one PC I have a normal IDE as the main boot drive. Second
"drive" is a Promise PCI RAID card which pretends to be a SCSI card but
has (in my case two) IDE drives connected to it. Using RAID 0 this gives
a fast drive. I have also loaded W98 onto it and can boot to it by
changing the boot sequence in the BIOS to SCSI,  A, C. 

Andrew if you had a similar PCI RAID card setup or a (genuine) SCSI
drive on a SCSI card (or off the motherboard if it has SCSI on it) your
BIOS would surely allow you to change the boot sequence. 

If the BIOS would also allow you to disable the SCSI / card, or the IDE,
so the relevant drives could sit there not recognised when you booted to
the other O/S would this be a solution? Or 

I haven't looked lately but simple raid cards should not cost much now
or do you have it on your motherboard?

Advantage - files and images could be swapped depending on filesystem
recognition. 

Disadvantages - the drives you had disabled the recognition of would be
still be spinning and thus ageing, and using power and creating heat.
(On my system both drives are all part of the working boot, swap file,
backup, day to day working)
And, possibly, using up a PCI slot. 
And having to nip into the BIOS to make a change but this is quick once
you get practiced at it. 


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