Quote:
Disconnecting the power to the drive isn't the same thing at all, it is no different to disconnecting the SATA cable, which I have tested.


There's no good way to test every possibility. Fortunately, with most drive (it seems), failure to spin-up means the drive will also fail to complete the "IDENTIFY" handshake, and a good BIOS will then assume the drive is not present and try the next.

But there's always a possible pissy spot there, and without a failsafe BIOS (source code generally required to verify that..), one never knows..

Cheers