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I have two different external USB hard-drives which goes to sleep mode when not used for a while.

When any software program (or I, myself) opens directory tree, open/save dialog box or my computer window, Windows every time wakes up my hard-drive, and it take about 10 seconds delay. It always happens and it is indeed very frustrating.

How do I stop window do this unnecessary action? I want windows not to wake up my hard-drives unless I click one of them on the tree. Is there a way of configuring Windows to do this?

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64, up-to-date
HD: Independent of model; it happens with every hard-drive that support sleep feature

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    This is expected behavior, because metadata is requested. You can try to kill extensions using ShellExView
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Mar 19, 2012 at 8:07
  • I use a bunch of ways to try and avoid "my computer" to reduce the needless waking. Use drive shortcuts to specific drives, set "start in" locations on programs to the save locations you might have for them, when that works. Avoiding folder views alltogether, drag&drop direct into programs using the drive shortcuts, and when all else fails, unplug, or disable the device. The system provides access, when you go to view into it. not much you can do other than find ways to not view into it, or disable it till needed again.
    – Psycogeek
    Mar 19, 2012 at 8:38
  • @TomWijsman I downloaded ShellExView. Now, how do I know which extension should I disable? There are a just lot of them.
    – hkBattousai
    Mar 19, 2012 at 8:39
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    @hkBattousai: There is a Company column, if you only consider the non-Microsoft extensions there are a lot less extensions. A badly written extension is often the culprit of bad Windows Explorer behavior.
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Mar 19, 2012 at 8:42

2 Answers 2

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One way to do it is to mount each drive as a folder on your C drive. Your C drive will still spin up, but I believe you were more concerned with the external drives in your question.

Here's an article with instructions on how to set it up: http://wiki.flexraid.com/2011/09/29/tips-mounting-your-drives-as-folders-on-windows/

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Usually this happens because the software has to scan the drives for data, even if there isn't any. Probably the best/only thing you can do is to unplug it if you have a certain reason or if it's bothering you.

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