HDD Issue

[casagi...@optimum.net]

I have a 10+ year old Dell that came with about 960 GB HDD. I have
since added about 240 GB Kingston SSD to serve as C: and D: , and a
about 500 GB external SSD to handle all the stuff that was on the 960
HDD . The 960 HDD now serves no usefull purpose, yet continues to fire
up at various odd times. How can I stop this ? I don't see anything in
the BIOS. Running good old and well behaved Windows 7 BTW.

[Paul]

Replace it with an SSD ? The rubbish down at this level, is all roughly
the same, but PNY is an actual reputable brand. PNY make video cards too.

https://www.newegg.com/pny-cs900-120gb/p/N82E16820177029

There is PWDIS. A five wire power cable inside a PC, can trigger PWDIS
on its own. A four wire power source for SATA, lacks 3.3V and allows
a HDD to spin up. But not all drives necessarily obey this. It would
depend on what SATA feature level the drive claimed it was compatible with.
I don't think I have any drives here, that would listen to this trick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

The BIOS in a Dell, usually includes a control per SATA port
if you can find it. But its behavior is a lot more confusing
than any regular retail motherboard. The Dell has some pretty crazy
ideas about RAID, and it is the RAID enablement that puts making
BIOS changes off the rails (the BIOS thinks RAID works in pairs,
and perhaps pairs of ports appear or disappear in the interface,
best guess).

I have one Dell here in my collection, but the problem is, I
don't have a monitor for it. Since I had a PC mobo failure here,
I no longer have a convenient setup for swapping PCs out and
testing ones from the junk room. I don't have table space, for
even one more PC.

I think one user, reported a drive which refused to spin up.
I think they were seeing the PWDIS feature in action, and I gave
them the details. And as thanks, they never reported back so
we'd have a field confirmation. That was an 8TB drive, and size
seems to be a factor as far as "identifying drives that might have it".
I very much doubt your 1TB drive has this feature.

Paul

[Marco Moock]

Am Mittwoch, 09. Februar 2022, um 17:31:12 Uhr schrieb
casagi...@optimum.net:

In most cases HDD spin up if they get power. If you don't need the disk
at all disconnect the SATA power connector.
Some disks (not all) offer a jumper to change the behavior how the spin
up. They then only spin up if they are requested by a special ATA call
IIRC.
The main reason for that is that the accumulated inrush currency for
many disks is too high, so they can spin up one after the other.
I have an Excelstor J640 that supports that.

PS: Windows 7 is insecure if you don't have ESU.
Maybe think about upgrading to Win 8.1 or Linux.

[John McGaw]

On 2/9/2022 5:31 PM, casagi...@optimum.net wrote:

Stating what might be the overly obvious, if the drive serves no useful
purpose, why not simply disconnect and/or remove it? Of course if you want
to do some detective work it might be possible to examine the contents of
the drive to see if some files are being updated during these power-up
events and then find out why -- there could be some app or other set to use
that useless drive. Or maybe go into disk management and remove the drive
letter to see if it is then ignored by whatever is triggering it?

--
Bodger's Dictum: Artifical intelligence
can never overcome natural stupidity.

[casagi...@optimum.net]

It looks like all I had to do, is Disable it, in the Device Manager.

Now it's not showing in the Explorer and not Firing-Up.

[philo]

On 2/12/2022 3:18 PM, casagi...@optimum.net wrote:
> It looks like all I had to do, is Disable it, in the Device Manager.
>
> Now it's not showing in the Explorer and not Firing-Up.

I'd disconnect it and keep it as a backup.
Even if it's not in use, it is still getting power and will eventually fail.