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My 2 external hard drives are always active as I have disabled auto sleep. I didn't have this problem way since Windows 7, but after upgrading to Windows 8.1 from Windows 8, my 2 external hard drives will automatically went to sleep around 10 minutes of inactivity. I have tried the power options, device manager options, but to no avail. Any help? Thanks.
I'm using NoSleepHD as a temporary fix but I hope there's a permanent fix for this.
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Thanks for the trace. We will analyze and get back to you. We published a blog on this yesterday to bring awareness and get help from the community to root-cause the issue. We think this is all due to suspending the device when idle which we never used to do in previous OSes. We will find out if this turns out to be something else.
I'm having the same problem, but with only one of my USB drives. It's fairly old, but I doubt that's a factor. However, I am going to back it up, format it, and put everything back on it anyway.
I also adjusted the settings for "allow computer to turn off this device to save power", power options "turn off hard discs (changed it to 90min)" and in power options, "USB selective suspend setting" to disabled.
If this fixes the problem, I will go back and undo the changes individually and see which setting worked and report back.
Thanks for the help Anannya Podder and Eliyas Yakub.
Eliyas, I have a Seagate 3 TB Seagate Backup plus Desk. I had problems even after first release of those whitelisted several months ago. Once the update came out last tuesday the 8th my drive has worked fine. I was even able to use the Seagate setting to have the drive go to sleep after 15 min and when my Paragon Backup schedule was due to run several times during the night it woke the drive up and did a full backup flawlessly. The drive has stayed on and not gone to sleep one time.
Eliyas, is this update out yet? I just updated windows 8.1 to the new update 1 and I seem to be having even worse problems with my external drive now. The drive is now spinning down after a couple of minutes and once it does, I can't get it to spin back up unless I turn the power on and off again! I just can't believe such a simple thing isn't being fixed. I'm using a good 2TB seagate drive in a thermaltake blacX USB drive slot and whatever has been done to windows 8.1 is now working worse for me and rendered my external drive completely useless.
OMG! This is driving me nuts! Come on Microsoft! The planets not going to explode if we use a little more energy for running a hard drive. If it is, then I suggest we all stop using computers altogether. Same problem here. 2 TB Seagate connected to my USB via Thermaltake BlacX drive host. Damn thing spins down now after about 5 minutes and I sometimes can't get the stupid thing to spin back up- so have to turn the power off and then back on just to get the drive recognized again! Wow.. F'ng annoying! My hard drive has now twice developed BAD CLUSTERS due to this sleep wake bullshi*! Unbelievable! If you wanted aggressive power management Microsoft FINE, just make it a damn OPTION stop forcing **** like this down the users throat! Are you trying to lose customers?! Really? Add features but for the love of God- give people the options to either turn them on or off! End rant. :)
