Hard drive keeps shutting down in Vista

[FreqFace]

I installed Vista recently and I've noticed a wierd problem that never happened with XP. After a few seconds (literally) of inactivity, my secondary hard drive (ie. not the one vista is installed on) will stop running. Then when I access it in my computer it'll start up again. Then I leave it a few seconds, I hear it shut down again... what's the problem here? Is is some arbitrary power-saving feature? Is there an option somewhere to stop this?

Thanks.

[Raa]

Are you running RAID at all?

Are the drives on a RAID controller? Checked your drivers?

Also check the power options - but after a few seconds, definately doesn't sound right.

Are you using SP1 (any version) ?

[FreqFace]

I'm pretty sure I'm not running RAID but they are on a RAID controller -- does that make sense? I don't really know much about RAID :blush: . Thing is, there's a control panel option called "Silicon Image SATA Controllers", but when I double click it, it does nothing. Would that have something to do with it?

No, I'm not running SP1, but Vista is up to date. Checked the power options - can't see anything to do with it.

[Raa]

Yep, makes sense!

The panel should open, it sounds like it could be a buggy driver - check siliconimage's website for a new driver would be my first suggestion.... i cant remember the link, you'll have to google that up sorry :p

[FreqFace]

Hmm, this is what device manager says:

But I can't find any mention of it on the silicon image site... usually Windows Update applies on the relevant updates.

[vincent]

Are the drive(s) plugged into a single port(s) on the motherboard?

What motherboard are you using?

[FreqFace]

Erm... the drives are plugged into two seperate SATA ports, if thats what you mean? The mobo is some generic one with an ATI chipset. I didn't build this computer myself so I'm not entirely sure. Googling it just seems to bring me to a bunch of older drivers, which I don't think would help :/

[Raa]

It's ATI, not SIL, you shouldn't have a silicon image control panel (and thats why it doesnt work)

If you have an ATI chipset, then goto ati's website ati.amd.com i think it is, and install the latest chipset drivers for Vista that are there. That might fix the problem (Y)

Edit: Errm, okay it's a SIL made for ATI then. You'll probably still need ATI drivers though...

[FreqFace]

You sure? Because when I was on XP it used the silicon drivers fine, infact the computer came with those drivers. And the ATI site just seems to be for graphics cards not SATA drivers, unless I'm missing something? In this situation I'd usually uninstall the drivers then re-install but if I do that my HD's will probably not work anymore!

[abecedarian paradoxious]

The default power settings in Vista are to power down the hard drives after some period of inactivity.

You can change that by going into the Control Panel | Power Options.

[FreqFace]

^ It's set to 30 minutes, my HD will turn off after 2 or 3 seconds of no use.

My BIOS flashes up 3112a as the model no., I googled that and it seems they've dropped support for it, and can only get updates through Windows Updates... well this sucks.

[abecedarian paradoxious]

I was just telling you where the settings were ;) so you could disable the drive shut down

I don't have an answer for the HD spin-down issue you're having but it is probably being caused by the drive not supporting the full SATA specs regarding power management, etc.

[under_score]

Yeah, I have this same problem with my setup

2 Raptor 150gb raid 0 with another 150 as storage... one of the HDDs shut down...

Core2Duo OC @ 3.2 on ASUS P5K-DeluxeWifi, 2gb G.Skill Ram, XFX OC 7950GT, Mushkin 550watt PSU

It's a pain in the ass, because when I'm gaming, some of the info is on the shut down HDD, and it has to re-spin back up - causing lag in the game...

Any clues?