Windows 2000 freezes when HDDs wake up

[Danila Medvedev]

Hello!

I have 3 IDE hard disks in a desktop computer. Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) is
set up to turn off the hard disks after 1 hours of inactivity. This is
done to save power and prevent overheating (there is no special cooling of
the disks) Because 2 of the 3 disks contain only rarely accessed files
(mostly various archieved media files), they frequently turn off when the
computer is in active use (the one disk with OS, applications and user
files continues to work).

The problem: when any application tries to access data on those 2 disks,
the OS momentarily freezes for a few seconds. The disks wake up/turn
on/initialize/etc. and after this momentary freeze everything works.
However, during these few seconds, the computer doesn't respond at all
(the mouse pointer freezes), display is not updated, audio (for example,
MP3 playback) stutters/freezes (audio from the buffer is repeated).

The disks (3 Samsung IDE HDDs, 120+160+160Gb), apparently, are not
defective and operate normally (they were routinely tested during
maintenance operations a month ago).

Windows 2000 Pro SP is installed on the computer. Intel Application
Accelerator is also installed. The computer is Pentium 4 (Celeron) 1.6GHz
with 512Mb RAM.

Is this type of a problem common? What can be causing it? Or is it normal?
Can anything be done to solve it (other than disabling power management)?


--
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Danila mailto:[email protected]

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[Colon Terminus]

Hello!

I have 3 IDE hard disks in a desktop computer. Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) is
set up to turn off the hard disks after 1 hours of inactivity. This is
done to save power and prevent overheating (there is no special cooling of
the disks) Because 2 of the 3 disks contain only rarely accessed files
(mostly various archieved media files), they frequently turn off when the
computer is in active use (the one disk with OS, applications and user
files continues to work).

The problem: when any application tries to access data on those 2 disks,
the OS momentarily freezes for a few seconds. The disks wake up/turn
on/initialize/etc. and after this momentary freeze everything works.
However, during these few seconds, the computer doesn't respond at all
(the mouse pointer freezes), display is not updated, audio (for example,
MP3 playback) stutters/freezes (audio from the buffer is repeated).

The disks (3 Samsung IDE HDDs, 120+160+160Gb), apparently, are not
defective and operate normally (they were routinely tested during
maintenance operations a month ago).

Windows 2000 Pro SP is installed on the computer. Intel Application
Accelerator is also installed. The computer is Pentium 4 (Celeron) 1.6GHz
with 512Mb RAM.

Is this type of a problem common? What can be causing it? Or is it normal?
Can anything be done to solve it (other than disabling power management)?

This is normal behaviour and nothing can be done about it.
Either live with it or turn off the power saving feature.
There's no reason on earth that the hard disks can't run 24/7.

 

[John7]

If Windows had implemented multi-tasking properly like Unix,
you could continue to work even when spinning up disks.

Microsoft has still a long way to go here...
Especially Windows XP kills your productivity
allthough Microsoft states the opposite.

Sorry for the sarcasm, but it's true, so sad !
In 5 years you'll need a Pentium5 @ 10GHz to type a letter.

 

[Leythos]

Sorry for the sarcasm, but it's true, so sad !
In 5 years you'll need a Pentium5 @ 10GHz to type a letter.

I can still type letters on my old Heath-Zenith CPM machine, and my
first IMB PC (still has a 10MB HD and a Floppy, and it still runs).