tinkering with a project and need some help

[kleinde]

hi
i would like to attach 4 hdd's to the two ide cables in a computer and boot the computer with out the hdd's powered up,

i attached two hdd's to one ide cable then turned on the computer but it hangs on the self test before the bios page, i'v tried all the bios settings and noting changes, what pin in the ide cable can i disconnect so it doesn't hang on boot, then reconnect after wards ?

what i'm trying to do is not have 4 storage drives powered up all the time when they are not in use, saving a little energy and ware on the drive motors, i'm using puppy linux and even though it isn't a good idea i have hot swapped ide drives and puppy will mount the drive with out rebooting. i'm going to use ptl1 and a relay board to control the 12v and 5v power to the hdd's , i have puppy linux installed to a usb flash drive,

[kiosk]

ATA drives are simply not designed to do what you have in mind. They require power to "self identify" to BIOS, and no amount of tinkering with the cables is going to change that.

[kleinde]

hummmmmmmm there has to be a way to trick it into not seeing it for 30 seconds or so, ive booted puppy with no hdd using a usb flash drive then connected an ide hdd and with out rebooting puppy will mount the hdd

[mjc]

It uses slightly more power to spin up a drive than it does to keep it idling and puts more wear on the motor, especially if done frequently. Most drives already will spin down after a certain amount of time...reducing power consumption. At best, you'll get minimal power savings if you leave the drives off for long periods and only power them up occasionally...drives aren't a major power user.

If you are wanting the power savings of something like that look into 'green drives' (I'm not sure, they may be all SATA drives, though).

Also, 'hot swappable' technologies like SCSI and SATA would be where you would be more likely to find a way of doing it...