How to stop hard drive spinning down?

[cusimar9]

I have Vista Ultimate installed and I've been sitting at the computer for about 30 minutes browsing the web, I launch an explorer window up and I have to wait 2 or 3 seconds for the hard drive to spin up.

I understand the hard drive spinning down similar to the screen saver coming on, but when I'm using the computer I want it to be RUNNING.

I had a look through the power management options and its so vague - Balanced, Power Save and High Performance (its on High Performance BTW)

Any idea? I'm sure in older versions of windows you had an explicit option for how long to wait before spinning down the hard disks...

 

[cusimar9]

Forget it, I just found it <doh!>

 

[purplefire]

It would be nice if you'd let the rest of us know.

 

[pat mcgroin]

This could sound uncaring but

Depending on how long Vista is installed it will run "forever' until it has a chance to get all of the setings correct.

It will also run "forever' if indexing is enabled until it is done indexing

Vista also includes a newer search engine that is much like indexing and gathers all of the info it can get

Its diffficult to say how long your install has been in operation but these are a few of the things that will happen.
This will obviously cause a little system slowdown while it is happening.
Once it is done things should be much better.

You mention that you cruise the web and then open a explorer window.
I assume you mean windows explorer window.
Depending on the amount of RAM you have, it could take a minute to transfer everything it was doing to the new task

Any of these can be adjusted

More info is required

 

[purplefire]

Sorry, but you must have misread the first post (which the original poster has already resolved). He (and I) wanted to know how to stop the hard drive spinning down constantly. You use an application or run a song and the drive will spin up noisily, then after a second of loading, it will make this loud disengage sound like a car reversing, and it will spin down. Then when you need it in a couple more minutes it will repeat the process. It is bloody irritating to hear it as it makes you jump. Also it causes programs and music to be slow.

 

[swampy]

Wasnt this some kind of bug in Vista and not fixable with the normal power saving settings...?

 

[pat mcgroin]

You're right I did misread it. I didnt realize it was spinning down while actually providing data.