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Main => Software Forum => Topic started by: zaphod on January 17, 2008, 10:08:53 am

Title: Spindown and disconnect external HD via code
Post by: zaphod on January 17, 2008, 10:08:53 am

Okay, I will throw this out here to see if anyone has beat this problem.  I have a couple external harddrives that always spin while they have power going to them.  Does anyone know if there are commands that could be sent to the drive to spin it down (like the power save mode on internal drives) and then disconnect it?  I don't need to kill the power to them, I'd just like a scheduled task to spin down the drives after the backup jobs finish.

Title: Re: Spindown and disconnect external HD via code
Post by: 2600 on January 17, 2008, 10:43:50 am

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272)

Google FU (http://www.google.com/search?q=remove+USB+device+with+devcon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)

Title: Re: Spindown and disconnect external HD via code
Post by: zaphod on January 17, 2008, 10:53:48 am

Very nice.  Thank you.  I'm not sure that devcon allows me to "spin down" the drive, though, just disconnect it.  Of course, I could be missing the obvious...

Title: Re: Spindown and disconnect external HD via code
Post by: 2600 on January 17, 2008, 11:26:27 am

FYI, Not all external drives support spin down.