How do I turn off the other hard drive?
Tuesday, 04 September, 2007
I have two hard drives and am using one as a backup. How can I turn off the second one on my AMD XP computer? I just want it to go to sleep if not accessed.
(Originally posted February 2006)
Peter Prewett, Tumut, NSW
 The fact that your system has an AMD XP processor in it makes no difference at all to your problem. The simple fact is, when using the Power Management feature of Windows you can’t switch the hard drives off independently. It’s all or none, I’m afraid, for internal IDE or SATA hard drives. Wake one hard drive up by accessing it and they all run.
That’s as long as it is installed internally in your system, of course!
If that second hard drive really is only ever used for backup/restore functions, and you really do want it turned off when not in use there’s another way to confront the problem. Purchase an external drive enclosure kit, remove the drive from your system and use it as an external drive which can be removed when not in use. Such kits can be purchased for as little as $50 if you shop around, and if your PC doesn’t provide USB 2.0 support (to enable faster data transfer) then a USB 2.0 controller card can be obtained for as little as $25. The drive kits will operate via a USB 1.0 controller, of course, but data transfer speed is painfully slow. Connected via USB 2.0 it will still be slower than when connected internally, but then you don’t sit around watching your PC while it’s backing up files, do you?
Cheers and Cheers, John Hilvert and Terry O’Shanassy
 Reader solutions
bheaPosted: 02/04/2010 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? RevoSleep does not work on my PC! DavidPosted: 01/06/2008 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? I discovered you can add/remove extra hard drives while the pc is in stand by. Just make sure to plug the ata connector in FIRST!
BillyPosted: 07/02/2008 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? Go to the Device Manager. Under Disk Drives, select the backup drive and right click then disable.
When you want to use it, enable the drive. AAPosted: 28/01/2008 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? WTF... editing is one thing, adding words just makes you a dick - (if you trust it and have good eyesight)
(Yes, I added those words. I don't just publish URL's that people submit without checking them. And my eyesight IS bad so I couldn't really read that web page - sorry. -PZ) AAPosted: 27/01/2008 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? ZZ you have no clue as to how windows work.
Simple http://revosleep.realspooky.de if you trust it and have good eyesight tvhurtsPosted: 01/11/2007 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? @ Tony Brown
Your 'loss' of capacity is due to hard disk manufactures defining a gigabyte as 1000 megabytes, whereas Windows defines a gigabyte as 1024 megabytes.
I'm afraid that means you will never recover the 'lost space'.
See here for more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
Hope that helps
tv Tony BrownPosted: 07/09/2007 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? Thanks Paul :) Though one of the assistants at "OfficeWorks" where I bought this HD did suggest I try re-formatting the external drive perhaps later using default options and this might recover the lost space.
Thanx again and I love your mag. Tony BrownPosted: 05/09/2007 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? Hi Peter :) I just recently bought an external Western Digital 320GB hard drive which is connected thru an USB port and also gets it's power from the PC thru it's separate power cable.
Therefore,when I don't want to use this drive I just don't plug in the power cord and it doesn't work.
Keeps me happy altho' when I first had to format the new drive I noticed thru Disk Manager that the volume had dropped from the stated 320GB to 298GB.
Can anybody clear up why this happened ?
Still even at 298GB it's heaps more than I'll ever need.
Cheers all :) Cya later.
Tony Brown
(That difference in disk size seems about normal. It's just one of those things. -PZ) rx7Posted: 04/09/2007 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? maybee this tool will help you:
revosleep (http://revosleep.realspooky.de). revoSleep lets your hard disk sleep in few seconds. You can lock different hard disks, so you can be sure they won't wake up.
(Thanks. -PZ) zzPosted: 10/11/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? win xp can turn hdds off independently, see power options. each gets a timer, reset by disk activity. just make sure no swap files are on the hdd and you're set, the OS activity will keep the other spinning instead.
mel mudiePosted: 04/03/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? I just switch the power with a 4-pole 2-way toggle.Works fine for me.Bootup a bit slow as Dave mentioned. chrome Posted: 28/02/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? why do people want to turn every thing on and off?I always have 2 hdds and i partition them both and have an external aluminium case for a spare back/up/just in case emergancy.This allows you to put it away from your pc in a fire proof safe and 10min later you are up and running. DylanPosted: 25/02/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? the problems with ESD can be pretty bad, but if you open the case to plug the drive in, you touch the chassis effectivley earthing yourself.
Why not get a harddrive caddy, they cost what.. 10 dollars, and it connects the drive internally, so you dont have to worry about any more supporting hardware or an external power source (in the case of the usb caddy).
You can also remove the drive when you dont need it and say... put it into a safe if you wanted..
It also looks pro because you have something more than cd drives in the 5 inch drivebays :P
(Good idea Dylan. -Paul Zucker) Dave SargentPosted: 23/02/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? Hi Peter,
Personally, I would not advise anyone to be unplugging and plugging in their hard drive power connector! It only takes a very small Electrostatic discharge to wreck a PC.
Also, Some mainboards will not boot correctly if a second drive is connected to the bus, even though the power may not be connected, the mainboard may still detect the drive and then waste time trying to address it!!!!
This will cause the boot time to increase and can also cause the drive seek times to increase.
The best method is to use the drive as an external drive with a USB case.
To be honest, even though the drive is spinning, because you are not accessing the drive, you are only running the motor and in the 20 odd years that I have been repairing PC's, I have never had a drive motor fault. Logic faults, mechanical faults and external damage yes!!! but never a platter motor failure.. Those motors are so expertly manufactured, to some of the highest standards and closest tolerances in most industries today, that they have a mean time between failures of many times the MTBF of the drive electronics or the life of the platter and read write heads.
I actually use an old seagate drive from way back in the nineties as my demo unit when I am giving classes on PC repair and I run the platter motor via a benchtop power supply, just to show my students that it really does spin that fast, and I show them a more recent western digital drive that spins even faster!!!!
so I would not be too worried about the drives MTBF.
If you use an external case for the drive, you can also take the drive home and keep it safe to ensure the integrity of the drive and the data on it!!!!!! Posted: 22/02/2006 re: How do I turn off the other hard drive? if you use another hard disk to back up files not too often then you could just plug in the power cable when needed.
i leave the pc case open and this process takes 5 seconds if you know what i mean. |