Ian wrote:
> But wouldn't this just be a matter of setting up the correct sequence of
> switching?  Like, it occurs to me that a switch assembly that not only
> reset the master but dropped power to one drive in turn, would be pretty
> effective.
Yes, but the Nicklock has only one switch. It switches the master jumpers.
I would design it with an extra section on the switch to either:
  1. Short the Slave pins on the unselected drive so it would act like a
     regular software dual-boot, where one could access files on the
     unselected drive from the selected drive, or;
  2. Break the power to the unselected drive, to make it inaccessible from
     the selected drive.
The way the Nicklock is currently designed, some hard drives will be
accessible when unselected, some won't; some hard drives will default to
Master when unselected and will cause unknown problems; some purchasers
will have so many problems with the device they'll rip it out and stomp
it to pieces.

The Romtek Trios does interface with the power cable and the data cable
apparently switching some of the connections to isolate the unselected
drives. That can be bad for users who want to share files between the
drives, but good for keeping the kids and viruses isolated.
But there's no lock to keep the kids from shutting down and switching to
another drive.

I've searched quite a bit and can't find any other HD switching devices.
The Trios gets good marks in the reviews of it that I've read. Perhaps this
will lead to other devices in the future.
Larry Hooper

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