Vista goes to sleep

L

Larry

I'm new to Vista. I have a Compaq laptop with Vista.

My problem is this:

I want to run a program that over-writes deleted files on my hard
drive. It takes about five hours to run. When my computer has
been running for about 20 minutes, it goes into a sleep (whatever
the term is). The trouble is this program will not continue while
the computer screen is blank (off? asleep ?).

I hate to have to sit by it and touch it every fifteen minutes to keep
it active. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong ?

..
 
L

Larry

Something is wrong for a program to run that long just overwriting files.
Change your power options to sleep never. But I would strongly suggest you
look at the program. There is no reason for it to take 5 hours to overwrite
files, unless you're working with many, many thousands of files.
Tyro

Thanks, Tyro. I knew where the power options were on my old XP. The
control panel. But I can't find it on this Vista.
 
T

Tyro

1) Start - Control panel - Control Panel Home - System and maintenance -
Power Options
2) Start - Control panel - Classic View - Power Options
3) Start - Control panel - Enter "pow" in the search box.

It really wasn't that difficult. I could find it.

Tyro
 
G

Gene E. Bloch

These secure erase programs run for a very long time even if set to
overwrite only once. Set them to overwrite three or seven times and they
will outlast the Sun...

To the OP, look for your power settings and turn them off (i.e., set
"sleep" to "never", etc.

Right click on a blank part of the desktop, choose Personalize, then Screen
Saver, and click on Change Power settings.
 
T

Tyro

Even a write over of 10 times will not take 5 hours unless thousands of
files are involved.

Tyro
 
©

©arl

Larry said:
I'm new to Vista. I have a Compaq laptop with Vista.

My problem is this:

I want to run a program that over-writes deleted files on my hard
drive. It takes about five hours to run. When my computer has
been running for about 20 minutes, it goes into a sleep (whatever
the term is). The trouble is this program will not continue while
the computer screen is blank (off? asleep ?).

I hate to have to sit by it and touch it every fifteen minutes to keep
it active. Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong ?

right click the desktop
choose personalise, then screen saver
and then choose power settings
then you can change the plan
--


©arl

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..
 
L

Larry

1) Start - Control panel - Control Panel Home - System and maintenance -
Power Options
2) Start - Control panel - Classic View - Power Options
3) Start - Control panel - Enter "pow" in the search box.

It really wasn't that difficult. I could find it.

Tyro

Thanks again. After your first response sent me looking for "power
options" -- I used "search" and "power options" -- which sent me to
the "control panel" under "hardware and sounds" and then to "power
options".
 
L

Larry

These secure erase programs run for a very long time even if set to
overwrite only once. Set them to overwrite three or seven times and they
will outlast the Sun...

I'm using Eraser584. An internet download. Over the years, on
two other computers, I made up eight or ten CDs with files on my
hobby -- history. Then I recently bought a 250 gig external hard
drive. My idea was to consolidate all those files onto the EHD which
I can use between my desktop XP and my laptop Vista. I spent a
couple of weeks doing this. I loaded all of them onto the EHD and
went through it folder by folder. There was a lot of duplication, so
I deleted those files as I went. So my EHD ended up with about 46,000
deleted files. (according to a program called "Recover Files" I used
to check) I hated having all that junk on my new disk, so I
downloaded Eraser. But it seems to take forever with it set for 7
over-writes. Actually I ran it all night and it was only half
finished this morning. About 12 hours.

This is getting to be more than I had expected.

Is it normal ?
 
L

Larry

right click the desktop
choose personalise, then screen saver
and then choose power settings
then you can change the plan

Yep, that was a lot better than my "search effort". Thanks.
 

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