Thread: Hard Disk Switching: good idea/bad idea?

for a start, lemme say this: i am not very tech savvy. sure, i know the basics, though not all. so, i hope you'll tolerate with my incompetence of understanding the upcoming risk at what i may be asking.

so, just around 10 minutes ago, i was just browsing thru the net, listening to some music, till my media player got stuck. now this is normal for me, and only requires me to wait at most a few minutes. however, i wasn't in the mood for waiting, so, out of desperation and impatience, i gave my laptop a little slap, hoping for the good ol' "kick the broken tv to fix it" magic.

bad idea, i know. Lucille (my laptop) rebooted, and then gave me a black screen with the text "Please insert a bootable object..." or something along that line. being familiar with it, i cried in horror. happened last year when my hard disk was "supposedly" corrupted (you'll get why i emphasized supposedly later). frustrated and heart broken, i made the drastic action (i dunno why i did it seeing how i know shit about HDs and reformatting) of opening up the HD cover. took out the HD in order to open it up and look at the disk itself for god knows why. but i thought twice, hoped for the best, and snugly put the HD back, well secured.

now here i am as if nothing happened. turns out it was only loose after the slap, and only needed to be put back in place properly.and nothing seems to be lost.

so my question (doubling as the tl;dr here); would it be a good idea to be switching hard disks (the internal kind, not external with the USB and such) back and forth, of course after the pc is properly turned off? or will there be dire consequences in the long run?

No, but you've got a higher risk of bending the connector pins. Especially if you're stil using IDE (those are the ones with tons of pins arrayed in the connector).

oy, thats right, i forgot about that. well i guess it'd be too good to be true. might as well go for the external ones, despite being a tad bit expensive than the internal. thanks for the quick reply.

Originally Posted by diokhan

oy, thats right, i forgot about that. well i guess it'd be too good to be true. might as well go for the external ones, despite being a tad bit expensive than the internal. thanks for the quick reply.

Hardly more expensive. Enclosures cost almost nothing and if you want to be even cheaper, just buy the cables (IDE to USB, etc).

Originally Posted by Jyuu

Hardly more expensive. Enclosures cost almost nothing and if you want to be even cheaper, just buy the cables (IDE to USB, etc).

ok, the IDE to USB cables, i did not know. not to mention, business people here (somewhere in SE Asia) are very opportunistic sometimes. just because it has USB, and as such more easier to use, they charged you more for it (ranging from an extra $30-50$, in my currency). not that i hate them for it or anything, since i'd do the same thing if i were in their shoes.

well, regardless, i may as well do it safe. thanks for the info.

If you're in SE Asia, make sure if you do buy an enclosure, don't just go n get the cheapest thing in the market. I've got a bad experience and eventually had to change the case.

Also, if you're planning to use it as a long term external drive, using just a USB to IDE cable will get your drive dusty.. Get an external case.

Originally Posted by diokhan

ok, the IDE to USB cables, i did not know. not to mention, business people here (somewhere in SE Asia) are very opportunistic sometimes. just because it has USB, and as such more easier to use, they charged you more for it (ranging from an extra $30-50$, in my currency). not that i hate them for it or anything, since i'd do the same thing if i were in their shoes.

well, regardless, i may as well do it safe. thanks for the info.

Don't tell me people still use SCSI over there?

Originally Posted by 98abaile

Don't tell me people still use SCSI over there?

wiki-ed and google imaged SCSI. i remember working with it as part of my course by disassembling and then assembling the inside of a pc (which i eventually forgotten), but then again, most of the pcs at the workshop were old.

if you're referring to the connectors for the HD alone, i see mostly IDEs and USBs. but if you have to know, we ain't as equally advance as those from the west. i guess the easiest example i can give limited to my understanding is this: i have NEVER seen anything more than a 180 GB internal hard disk ever on the market. not to say there's none here, rather i believe its very rare.

Well.. You can easily find 1TB disks in Indonesia/Malaysia/Singapore if you know where to look. Heck, you can even haggle if you're lucky.

But the rule of thumb is: bring a friend that knows where and what to get. Otherwise you'll just get ripped off.

Per GB, you'll pay less for an external HD, since you can use a 3.5" disk rather than a 2.5" (or less) required in your laptop. Even with an external case, it will still be less than what you'll pay per GB for laptop drives.

And yes, SCSI is still in use, it's faster than SATA for servers but cheaper than fibre channel disks.

=RT=