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
    2015-04-08T03:03:05+00:00

    A Simple Solution to the Symptom...that works

    I have tried all of the suggested remedies offered and none have prevented my external hard drive from shutting down.

    I came up with a solution...and it works. I saved music files (wav files) on my external HD. I play a music file in repeat mode through Windows Media Player...walla...HD remains active and the HD keeps spinning. To allow HD to stop, I merely turn off the music.

    It's not a cure to the problem, but it is a remedy to the symptom.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-01-27T19:12:02+00:00

    They haven't even addressed the issue on the tech preview on win 10 either...still the same, my drives shut off near instantly, sometimes they take that long to click in that i give up and stop, i get errors everywhere, I'm actually typing this with my drive options box in front of the text window because it wont go away, i cant stop it from showing failing unplugging the drive, tune up says i have an issue with all usb drivers all drives and anything plug and play related, yet they all work?, and as for one drive, well i cant even disable it, Ive disabled all registry options and the damn **** still pops up every boot, windows has become a pile of **** end off, the last good windows was 7 after service pack 1, these other tablet based **** excuses for operating platforms are terrible, i find even opening folders like a 3 or 4 click event to actually get to what i want, instead of the 1 or 2 on previous versions, so stupid and unintuitive.

    keeps trying to make my drives scsi as well..microsoft what are you actually doing with this software, because this isn't an improvement this is making it for the sake of it, to make money...

    I'm going back to 7 and i will never buy another damn version of this rubbish again

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