How to switch my internal Hard Drive off ?

[Arnaud]

Due to vibrations & noise problems in my iMac G5 rev. A, I've decided not to use my internal hard drive anymore, but for backups once in a while. The external hard drives (250 + 300 Gb) are more than enough for use.

The internal HD usually falls asleep, but then it's a beachball party whenever I get to a save/open window, when the useless hard drive has to wake up (slowly).

Is there a way to tell the system "forget about this HD, until I tell you to remember it" ? If it were an external HD, I'd just keep it off, of course. And I don't want to open my iMac every time...

Thanks,
Arnaud.

 

[stoid]

Install OS X on one of the external drives, and boot from there.

If you want, you might even be able to unmount the internal drive from Disk Utility once you've booted from the external.

 

[Arnaud]

Install OS X on one of the external drives, and boot from there.

If you want, you might even be able to unmount the internal drive from Disk Utility once you've booted from the external.

Mmm, sorry I wasn't so clear, I've been booting from the external drive for 6 months already...

But you might have given me the solution with unmounting the internal drive via Disk Utility, I guess I overlooked that option...

Thanks