As part of one of my ideas for an upcoming case project, due to the fact that i'm looking to use Linux as my complete operating system for everything but DirectX games which can't be emulated effectively by WINE (e.g. all modern ones) and that I hate boot loaders (they make my angry ) i'm looking to somehow use a switch set before booting to choose between which OS it will boot into. One idea I have thought of is having Linux on a separate hard drive to Windows and set to first boot in BIOS, with the switch acting as a power switch to the Linux hard drive, if it's set to boot to Linux the switch would be set to on, allowing power to flow through it to allow it to turn on when the rest of the system does and therefore booting normally as Linux due to being set as the first hard drive. If it was set to off, then it wouldn't detect the first hard drive and boot to the second (or the RAID array) which Windows was on (In theory at least. ). I know this means that I won't be able to access Linux if I was on Windows but that doesn't bother me too much. Would this cause hardware problems do any of you know? Thanks. Anybody know of a better solution to be able to do this? (Choose Linux or Windows via a switch before booting the computer)
What you described there is what I had in mind. You could possibly get a hot swap bay, and plug in your linux drive when you want to use it, or vice versa with your xp drive too.
Have one SATA cable coming out of the mobo, then have a rocker switch between two other SATA cables and those cables connected to your Linux/Windows HDDs at the same time Mount the rocker switch in the front of your case and job's a good'un
oh oh, i saw someone do this with a mini ITX system. he wrote a custom version of an assembly boot loader to read the state of a switch (which was a tilt switch) and boot the corresponding OS. lemme find a link, hopefully he made the software available to the general public. http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/ the page you'll be interested in: http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/windowsxpbox/default.asp?page=4 unfortunately doesn't look like he's got any schematics/software on the page, but you can always contact him.
I'm not sure what kind of rocker switch you're talking about, and that you can switch sata like that. However, even if you could, I still like the power switch option and boot drive setup in BIOS. Easier, simpler and saves power! I don't think it would be bad for you hard drive, as long as you could keep people from flicking the power to your linux drive on and off. You might need to make that a keyed switch! I've been wanting to use one of those.
Actually that's not a bad idea, I have too. The idea of it makes me feel powerful, like a commander in charge of launching nuclear missiles.
Keys at each side of the room takes two to switch it to windows, that might encourage people to learn linux
To be honest I should be the only person using it. I'd have to have fighting to the death to allow other people to use it. Just means idiots won't be able to turn it just to peeve me off.
really wouldnt be too hard to do if you are using a 3 pole 10a toggle switch as long as you route the power wire from each drive to one opposite pole of the switch and have the common input power on the middle pole then it just acts like normal switch. supplying power to each unit depending on what side you have the toggle pointed to. shut down, flip the switch and reboot into the other OS no need to set the bios differently. since both drives will work independantly set them both as master drives so when they boot as they should with no fuss
I don't think i'd even need to do that. Unless BIOSes have changed significantly since the current motherboard I am using, you are asked to choose what priority to boot the disks from, eg. Hard Disk 1, then Hard Disk 2. All I presume that i'd need to do is set the first disk as Linux, if there is power to that it should boot normally, if there is not power to that then it should just look for the next available disk and boot into Hard Drive 2. If all goes to plan at least. Your solution doesn't look wrong but this means the Windows drive will be accessible in Linux but not vice versa, and this is alot more simple (not that yours is complicated ).
thinkin if you have both drives powered they would list as drive 1 and drive 2 , cut the power to either of them and they should default to only showing drive 1 regardless which is disconnected. so in effect the system will always boot to drive 1 so if they are both set as master you shouldnt have any problems when either is powered down
Right, thanks alot for clearing that up. The drives will be both SATA so they are both master anyway as far as I know.
maybe instead of a rocker switch maybe use a push button, so when it's pressed it'll power the linux drive
That's a nice idea as well, thank you. I'm thinking of going with the key idea, but that'll be secondary I think.
You can use a rocker, push button, whatever to control which drive recieves power, but can you leave the sata data cable plugged from mobo into a drive which is not recieving power, without any issues? I've never tried so i don't know, i guess you'd have to do some heavy hours of hdd testing to be sure, and i don't know wether it would be better to leave both drives earthed or use a multiple pole switch to fully cut all power leads to the unused drive?
Yes, it's fine, SATA is hot-swappable, and I plug in the data first, then power, when I hot-plug drives for whatever reason, and it has always been fine. Youre going to have to use a multipole switch to cut +5 and +12 anyway, but disconnecting ground isnt required.
Your idea of a switch to cut power to the linux drive is the best option. This will force a windows boot if linux is off. With SATA2 drives that also doesn't have to mean that you can't access linux - there should be no reason why you can't then flip the switch for your linux drive while in windows and then access it through windows too - Assuming you can read the file system! Alternatively you could use an eSATA drive enclosure (which already have power switches) and have the BIOS see the external drive as boot option 1. Easier but less cool modding to get involved with and feel proud of
