Hard drive takes a long time to access

[Bob]

I have a hard drive that acts as if it is not spun up after sitting
idle a while. However, I have checked the power management settings
and it is *not* set to power down. It should already be spun up.

Here's the hardware: win2K-SP4 server, running for 4+ years.
There are four drives in it. The first is SCSI and is boot (c,
the second SCSI is programs (d, the third is SCSI data (e/f.
This drive is IDE primary, data (z. There are also two IDE
CD drives on the other IDE (secondary) interface.

When I try to access the Z: drive (right at the server itself) it
takes a long time to get it to respond - like 15 seconds. The system
just sort of hangs there like it has to spin up the drive. I might
be just clicking on the drive icon in Explorer - it just takes that
long to get a listing of top level folders. Then it acts normally
for a while. If I let it sit long enough, it will do the same thing
again later on. I don't hear the drive physically pinning up when I
access it although it's possible I might not hear it since the other
drives are already whining a bit.

Long ago, the SCSI data drives in this machine (e/f) were set to
go idle. They are no longer that way. Even so, this is a newer
addition, a different disk interface, a different drive letter.


Any ideas?

Thanks.