HP Pavilion hard drive shuts off

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

gn1262 wrote:
> Hi! Has anyone seen problem like this? The hard drive of an HP
> Pavilion zv5000 laptop automatically shuts off whenever there's no HD
> activity for about a minute, regardless of what the Power Setting
> specifies in Windows XP.
>
> The HD even shuts off on its own when I am in the middle of BIOS
> setup, before Win XP is loaded, so I suspect it's the BIOS, not Win
> XP, that's automatically turning it off. I have updated to the latest
> version of BIOS (PhoenixBIOS, version F.42, December 2004) but that
> does not solve the problem. Btw, there seems to be no BIOS option
> regarding power management.
>
> I have scanned for viruses and spyware, and now HP Support recommends
> a Windows repair installation.
> Does anyone know how to keep the annoying HD on? Thanks in advance!

Post XP SP2 I have come across an increasing number of similar HD
shutdown problems on the microsoft.public.windowsxp.* newsgroups. I
would do the repair install just on this basis and then carefully add
new MS updates and patches to see if there is one that is responsible.
OTOH, perhaps corrupted chipset drivers are the cause - if it is not a
drive failure itself.

Q

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

After thorough scans for spyware/viruses, reinstalling various device
drivers, repair-install Win XP, and other troubles in between, the
issue was finally resolved by reverting the BIOS to a much older
version (F.12, February 2004), downloaded from HP site just like any
other BIOS version. I'm not sure if shutting of hard drive
automatically is deliberate in the BIOS versions after F.12.
Thanks for repsonding to my inital questions!