Hard drive goes to sleep windows 7

Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Answered by:. Archived Forums. Windows 7 Hardware Compatibility. Sign in to vote. Hello everyone! These forums look like a pretty good place to ask about something like this, so any help would be greatly appreciated. So, I did a clean install of Windows 7 Pro I have 7 booting from my primary hd obviously , a WD Raptor gig, and all of my data, including all of the user account folders, directed to a second hd, a WD Caviar black 1TB drive, which is how everything was running in Vista.

I find now that when we put the computer to sleep either because we set it to do so as we walk out the door, or it goes to sleep on its own if we forget about it , when it wakes up, the second HD is gone.

You can imagine the panic that caused. Once the computer has been restarted, however, everything is back to normal, and all files appear in their respective libraries, the disk is back in My Computer, with the same drive letter as before. I shouldn't have to reboot the computer every time I want my files.

However, you don't want the external hard disk or USB to go to sleep, so don't worry because you can configure each drive or USB to go to sleep or not to go to sleep after a specified time if the PC is idle. The next part is about the methods. Step 2: Next to your currently selected power plan, click the Change plan settings option. Step 3: Then click the Change advanced power settings link at the bottom.

Step 4: Then you can see the Turn off hard disk after option. You need to change the settings for On battery and Plugged in to specify after how many minutes of idle time you want the hard disk to turn off. Step 5: Click Apply and click OK. Then reboot your PC to save changes. Then you can check if your hard disk still goes to sleep or not. Sign in to vote. Occasionally the drive goes to sleep its logical drives are always present in Windows Explorer and after clicking on one of them it wakes up in up to 30 seconds despite the fact that I created and activated an 'always on' power profile where I disabled all power saving options, including USB selective suspend.

I wonder if there is any chance to make my external drive be always awake while having it connected via USB? Just a few notes. It goes into sleep at an arbitrary time, usually quite long.

It may stay awake as long as a couple of days or as short as a couple of hours. It is used all the time - one of my programs constantly reads it and writes to it that's why it is important for me to have it always stay awake. I have the most recent Nvidia chipset drivers installed I had the same problem with Windows 7 x64 Home Premium. Friday, March 12, PM. Here is a similar post, you can refer to the suggestions in it as well: Missing hard drive after resuming from hybrid sleep Hope this helps.