Prevent Windows 7 from accessing 2nd Hard Drive.

[dubya89]

I have a 2nd hard drive that goes into sleep mode when not in use after 20 minutes (the windows default).

However, it always seems to turn itself on even if I have 0 programs running.. (Everything unchecked from start up and non-MS services).

How do I prevent it from starting up unless I browse the drive?

I already disabled system restore and MSE, but what else should I do?

 

[Layback Bear]

You might be able to see what is running using this little program.

Process Explorer

Do you have your second drive set to index.

 

[dubya89]

Yes i have the second drive to "allow files on this drive to be index"

if i disable it, will the files still sort pretty quickly by name?

 

[Layback Bear]

Indexing could be what is happening. If you want to do searches for things on this drive in any reasonable amount of time you will need it indexing. I really doesn't hurt anything doing it. If a drive drive can't handle indexing the drive is no good.
I don't index my second drive because I only use it for backups that were indexed when I made them. If I had a drive that I was going to be looking for things often I would allow it to be indexing but that is just the choice one makes.

 

[bobafetthotmail]

disabling indexing does not affect the sorting by name. Any search on that drive will take an awful lot of time though.

Still, if you are on a laptop (the specs seem to hint at it) I suggest to turn off indexing alltogether and use an utility called Everything when you need to search stuff. Saves power.