I have the following problem:
I have a HTPC at home which is only used for its Mediacenter but since recently has an esata storage enclosure to record all its data to. The esata enclosure has a built-in sleep function if there is no activity. This seems to be the cause of my problem. Whenever the enclosure goes to sleep (and after a while the Mediacenter as well), whenever I wake up the HTPC, WIN7 becomes unstable because the esata enclosure is still awakening (takes about 3 secs and the HTPC less than 1). So when I awake the PC whilst the enclosure is still active, no problem what so ever! This is how I figured out this is causing the problem.
So what happens when the system becomes unstable, well here are a couple of things that happen every time, and some of you will recognize the issues (maybe now you know the cause):
- the cpu LED will remain constantly on
- after login, it will take ages to get you to the desktop screen (in my case the media center)
- the cd-rom drive will no longer be available (sata)
- List item
- the system can no longer sleep and recover (wake) from it again. This results in a black screen with a blinking cursor.
- a cold reboot is the only way to boot your system again. Using a simple restart will het you the black screen again.
=> so all these issues are caused by the fact that there was a delay in accessing the esata.
How can this be solved. I cannot configure the sleep settings of the esata enclosure, unfortunately.
My system = Win7 ultimate 32-bit on SSD, esata enclosure in Raid5 (Sharkoon 5-bay raid box), sata blu ray drive, Asus P7P55D E PRO, 4gb DDR3, Intel i3 2,98Mhz
PS: this MS Hotfix for larger drives dissapearing, is not solving it. Actually on this case, the drive is not dissapearing.