hard drive power on/off

[piano632]

I have 2 internal hard drives in the traditional master/slave configuration. The problem is I only use the second drive rarely and I don't want it to be powered on constantly, since the computer is on 12-16 hours a day. I have set the power options to turn off hard drives after 10 min. The second hard drive does turn off after the prescribed 10 min. but then every time I go to access Windows Media Player or some other video app the second hard drive powers on again even though I am not accessing any data from that drive. Also it will sometimes power on for no apparent reason when I am doing absolutely nothing on my computer.

Is this typical of the way it works, or is there a better way to configure it? I have the boot drive on the end of the IDE cable. Would it make things better if I put the second drive on the end of the cable? I also have another bay where I can put the second hard drive (instead of a floppy drive) and use a separate cable - would this help?

Suggestions appreciated as I do need lots of storage space for vidoes, but I don't want to wear out all my hard drives by leaving them on constantly. I know I can buy an external enclosure, but if I can save money...

I'm using WinXP Home, if that makes a difference.

[rallynavvie]

There was something I recall about WinXP and Media Player where it searches your "media libraries" on startup and that's where it spins up every drive. It should spin up optical drives as well. Dunno if there's a way around it other than using another player.

10 minutes? Does the primary drive ever kick out on you after sitting and reading something for 10 minutes or does the OS trivial tasks prevent that?

[Capmaster]

I think you're doing more wear and tear on the drive powering it up and down than you would by just letting it run. HDs typically have a 5 year service life. Otherwise every time you use an app that needs to open a file, Windows will cause your HD to spin up, as it does to every drive, then it'll spin down again in 10 minutes. I would just set it to run all the time.

[gmatov]

Windows setup defaults to power down monitor and drives after 15 minutes. Check and set to your preference in Power Options.

Personally, I do not like for my machines to go for a nap, reset to "Never".

There have been times the machine would not spin up on wake up, Hit Any Key, or move the mouse, reboot needed.

Better you should leave them run.

Cheers,

George

[Jayhawk]

Is this typical of the way it works, or is there a better way to configure it? I have the boot drive on the end of the IDE cable. Would it make things better if I put the second drive on the end of the cable? I also have another bay where I can put the second hard drive (instead of a floppy drive) and use a separate cable - would this help?

You may want to move your second hard drive to the other channel for other reasons (file transfer speed) but it's not going to solve your problem. As mentioned, one culprit is Media Player scanning for "new material". I don't believe XP differentiates between Drive-A and Drive-B. It just considers "drives" and "monitors".