Why does Windows 7 hang while waiting for 2nd HD to power up?

jearl · 12 Sep 2011

I've got two hard drives on my Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit system.

They are drives C: (a solid-state drive) and drive D: (a 500GB WD standard drive).

After 30 minutes, drive D: powers down to save energy. I've only got a few video files on it - I use it as a media drive. I'll be using the system just fine. When I open up Windows Explorer, and RIGHT-CLICK on any file on drive C: (the solid-state drive), there is a pause while I have to wait for drive D: to power up, and get up to speed (about 8 seconds). Then, the system responds again.

My question: Why is this? I'm not looking at any files on D:, why does Windows need to power it back up at all when I am dealing with drive C:?

Are there any ways to avoid this? If it IS accessing drive D:, is there a way to see what file(s) it is accessing?

Thanks!

Zepher · 12 Sep 2011

Make a shortcut to the C drive on your desktop.

Brink · 12 Sep 2011

Hello Jearl, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This is normal. When you open the Computer window, Windows will query all drives to refresh the Computer window. This query is what is causing the delay while the D: drive turns back on and spins up again.

The only option is to do what Zepher suggested to create a shortcut of the C: drive to use where you like instead, or you could use the tutorial below to set hard drives to never turn off when idle.

Hard Drive - Turn Off Hard Disk After Idle or Never

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

jearl · 14 Sep 2011

Thanks for the quick replies!

Ok, how about this one - same problem, but when I open up Outlook, again I have to wait for drive D: to get up to speed. All of my Outlook files are on drive C:, except for the Archive.pst file is on drive D:.

Does Outlook always access the Archive.pst file, even if I'm not archiving anything?

I'd rather not disable the power-saving feature of the drive.