turning hard drives off

n604 · Post by **n604** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 7:48 pm

in "power options" it can be set to have the hard drives turn off just like monitors, after a set minutes of inactivity.

do you guys use this feature? is it a good idea?
i got 3 hard drives, and all 3 dont need to be running all the time.

does it damage the hard drive in any ways if it keeps turning on and off a lot of times?

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 8:58 pm

turning it on and off endlessly isn't great for the drive, as it has to accelerate quickly when u turn it on. that said, its not going to kill a drive if its not too often. personally i'd set it to turn off if u can pick a time that means it won't spin up more than 10 times/day. its good for power consumption and noise, obviously.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:21 am

I find if you leave a lot of background tasks running (like most people do), some program or service will want to read some file or write to its log, and it's really hard to get the hard drive to which Windows is installed to stay spun down.

Even opening Windows Explorer and pointing it at My Computer seems to spin up all the hard drives.

I have my hard drives set to spin down after 10 minutes. C: remains in high-power mode all the time, and my secondary hard drive spins up far more often than I need it. Still, I save some power.

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Tue Nov 14, 2006 10:29 am

mountvol.exe should be your friend.

neovibe · Post by **neovibe** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:14 am

hi

could you please tell me where can I learn to use mountvol.exe to turn hard drives off?? I can't find anything...

thank you!!

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:20 am

neovibe wrote:hi

could you please tell me where can I learn to use mountvol.exe to turn hard drives off?? I can't find anything...

thank you!!

mountvol /?

unmount: mountvol e: /D

remount:
1. get cryptic volume name by executing mountvol alone
2. mountvol e: \\?\Volume{xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx}\

neovibe · Post by **neovibe** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:49 am

thank you, jojo4u

is this command supposed to turn them off or just keep them from being turned on when I don't want them to??
I tried exactly as you said but the hard drive keeps working although it does disapear from the windows explorer...

If so, is there any way to turn them on imediately?? I know I can do it via control panelÂ»Â»power options but it take 3min... is there a way to reduce those 3min to, say.... 5 seconds??

thanks again!!

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:51 am

viewtopic.php?t=35424

neovibe · Post by **neovibe** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 6:54 am

thanks jojo4u