Disable a HDD temporarily?

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Guest

I'm running XP Pro SP1, with 2 IDE HDDs. The secondary one is particularly
noisy and I only use it occasionally for video projects, but of course it
spins up whenever the system is started, and although in Power Options I have
set the hard disks to turn off after 3 minutes, it regularly starts up again
(for indexing maybe??) and creates a racket. The desk it's on acts as a
soundbox and you can hear it almost throughout the house. (Unless my wife is
snoring, when it pales into insignificance).
Other than opening the case and removing the cable from it, is there any way
of disabling a secondary HDD on a temporary basis so that it won't even spin
up on boot?
 
HDD are real cheap. May want to replace. Going to fail eventually and you'll
lose whatever is on it.
 
Thanks, but I did try that previously and it doesn't seem to stop the disk
powering up and running. It just makes it inaccessible. I guess I'll pull the
cable, that's the only sure way. BTW re your second post and the warning re
failure, I know what you're saying but this one is only a few months old, a
WD Caviar, and has always been noisy from the start. My C drive is a Samsung
and it barely hums.
Should have got another one of those. Next time...
I'm from England. Thanks for your help.
 
You can not disable a hard drive in device manager. The only way is to
remove power from the device. Otherwise, the drive may be spinning but not
reading. The O/P want the drive to NOT even spin. Even the bios settings
will not prevent the drive from powering up when the computer is turned on.
It "will" be running.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Hi Mate!

I've got a WD SATA Raptro (runs at 10K RPM) and it purrs like a kitten. My
two other EIDE drives are both WDs and also purrs like a kitten. Obviously,
your WD drive is defective but if it's still under warranty, call the WD
Customer Support. They've been responsive to my needs in the past.

If you decided to disconnect (ribbon and power) the noisy drive make sure
that the pins are configured properly on the remaining drive. Also I hope
your OS is in the good drive.

Cheerio.

DonSor
 
In message <[email protected]> "Richard Urban"
You can not disable a hard drive in device manager. The only way is to
remove power from the device. Otherwise, the drive may be spinning but not
reading. The O/P want the drive to NOT even spin. Even the bios settings
will not prevent the drive from powering up when the computer is turned on.
It "will" be running.
Click to expand...

While true, you can use power management to spin down the drive once it
has been inactive...
 
Yes, but I don't think that solution meets the O/P's criteria.

Also, it powers down "any" drive that is not being used for the set length
of time.

In addition, many people get confused during shutdown, as the computer seems
to hang - waiting for the drives to spin up **just so the machine can shut
down**. I know a guy who just pushes the off button (improper shutdown)
whenever this happens.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
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