Windows programs hang when external hard drive wakes up

06
2014-04
  • user48081

    My 1-TB Western Digital external hard drive keeps waking up randomly. This leads to several parts of Windows to hang e.g. the flash plugin in Firefox or the Windows Explorer while browsing files on other hard drives. It doesn't lead to crashes, but the ~7 second hang until the hard drive powers up is pretty annoying.

    So,

    1. Why does Windows wake the external drive? I used Perfmon to identify the process and it seems that SuperFetch is the culprit. But it doesn't make sense to me.

    2. Why does the waking up and powering up of the external drive lead to hanging of different programs in windows, that shouldn't even use the drive directly (Flash Plugin or Firefox) ?

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  • Chris Lieb

    I have gone through two external hard drive enclosures and have had this issue with both, though not one from five years ago. When I turn off my Windows Vista Ultimate x64 system, the external hard drive enclosure (USB 2.0) powers down the hard drive, though stays on. When I turn my computer back on, the external hard drive remains off. The only way to get the drive to spin up again is to turn it off and wait for a few minutes before turning it back on.

    This enclosure exhibits the same behavior regardless of what USB port it is hooked to. I have three USB ports on the chassis of my laptop and four more on a docking station.

    This enclosure has always exhibited this behavior since I purchased it. The previous enclosure that I had seemed to have heat issues that caused it to spin down randomly and required you to put it in the refrigerator for a while to cool it down enough for it to spin up again. I'm not sure if this enclosure is exhibiting the same behavior or if this is unrelated.

    Does anyone know what might be causing this problem?

    Note: This is an enclosure for a 3.5in HDD that has a separate 120VAC power brick, so the computer itself is not powering the drive in any way (that I'm aware of).


    • Related Answers
  • swamplord

    Have you tried it with other machines and other operating systems? If you did and the same problem persists, you have a faulty product.

  • Mufasa

    Check your drivers of course. If that doesn't help, adjust your Control Panel -> Power options.