Windows 8.1 causes external hard drives to auto-sleep?

Anonymous
2013-10-27T07:38:58+00:00

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.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Devices and drivers

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Anonymous
2013-11-01T15:32:42+00:00

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.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2013/11/01/help-after-installing-windows-8-1-my-usb-drive-disappears-or-file-transfers-stop-unexpectedly-r-a-post-title.aspx

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-09-10T11:07:52+00:00

    I updated from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1. My external drives went to sleep after a short time of no activity on the external hard drive. The hard drive was waking/sleeping many times during my work day; causing much inefficiency in my work and, it is also hard on the HDD (extra wear from starting and stopping).

    I have a simple solution fix...however,  not a causal fix. I simply run Windows Media Player in the background (volume off) from a music source which resides on my external HDD. I choose a folder containing music and run Windows Media Player in "Repeat" mode...music never shuts off and, walla... the external HDD never shuts off.

    I have another fix to the solution and that is running a simple data base algorithm such as:

    1+1=2;

    2-1=1;

    1+2=2...and so on. The program would continue to loop and keep that file, which would reside on the external HDD, active and not allowing the external HDD to sleep. Kinda' like your wife preparing for a large dinner party...ain't nobody goin' sleep during the prep time.  :- )

    Hope this helps...Michael

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-09-10T03:19:43+00:00

    Man this is happening to me, trying to find ways to recover. I have a 3T Seagate which was working fine on Win 10.  Having issues and reformatted my computer hard drive, which restored it back to Win 8.1. Shortly after that my external started acting up, it would start up, spin for a few sec and automatically shut down.  Looking for help on how to resolve. I don't know if the refrigerator trick will help it. My research also show that it may be the hard drive board, they are not that expensive. 

    If I find a system that work, will update.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-05-02T11:30:57+00:00

    Okay, it seems the regedit fix helped my situation finally! It doesn't spin up and down whenever, only when I use it. Source: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/usbcoreblog/2013/10/31/help-after-installing-windows-8-1-my-usb-drive-disappears-or-file-transfers-stop-unexpectedly/

    Check the "To disable suspend on idle for this device" section. It helped my Samsung D3 Station when I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10. Hopefully it'll be of use to someone else because the usual power settings recommendations aren't doing the trick.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-05-02T08:21:42+00:00

    SOLUTION FOUND: Install Win7 USB 3.0 drivers instead of the original ones that come with Win8/Win10 (eXtensible-Hostcontroller)

    I have had the same issue for a long time now. All the way thru Win8.1.

    Now I am on Win 10 and finally found a solution that works perfect for me.

    I downloaded the Win7 USB 3.0 driver from my manufacturer. Went to the device manager -> USB controller -> eXtensible-Hostcontroller -> update driver manually -> chose the *.inf files, in my case the Renesas USB 3.0 driver from manufacturer, that I downloaded, rebboot and voila!

    Since then all my drives behave as they should. It's more than two weeks ago.

    I have tried all the other suggestions before, but nothing helped.

    Hope someone finds this useful.

    Cheers,

    Pete

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