In XP (Classic Menu)
Start > Settings > Control panel > Power Options > Turn Off Hard Disks 
(Many settings from Always On - 3 minutes)

On 3/30/2010 1:01 PM, Dr Skip wrote:
> Update... looking at event logs and listening, it seems to be an issue when the
> drive needs to spin up. Drives in there now use much less power than the orig
> one. Maybe not a power issue?
>
> Leaving them spinning seems to not exhibit the problem. Is this a general SATA
> behavior? XP fault? Certain hw designs badly done?
>
> Vol ID doesn't seem to be an issue. Speed negotiation possibly (if they negotiate)?
>
> BTW, is there a tool to manually send a spin down cmd to the disk for XP?
> Searched but no luck. It might help diagnosing if I can tie spin up/down
> definitively to the event, rather than waiting for the kernel to decide.
>
> -Skip
>
> On 3/30/2010 11:31 AM, Dr Skip wrote:
>    
>> I've got what may be a hardware or architecture issue that I'm at a loss
>> for even where to start looking.
>>
>> I'll start with some questions. Hopefully the answers will show me the
>> error of my ways.
>>
>> 1) Will SATA drives and interfaces work with whatever speeds are
>> available and negotiate? In other words, if a drive (or 2) are different
>> speeds than the speed of the controller (capability) will it still work
>> well (via negotiation), or do they have to match.
>>
>> 2) Will a SATA controller support more than 2 channels, or is it
>> possible to design it such. That isn't possible with PATA master/slave.
>>
>> 3) With XP, if one used Linux (clonezilla for instance) to clone the
>> first drive (C), then installed it as a second (D), both vol IDs would
>> be the same. This works (in other words, it boots and reads/writes) but
>> will the system exhibit transient problems, conflicts, etc?
>>
>> In a nutshell, the system in question has 2 SATA drives of a faster
>> variety than orig. It appears to have 4 channels on the primary
>> controller (CD is on it too), and all works well until the second cloned
>> drive is on for a while. Eventually some access causes it to drop one or
>> both drives out of DMA mode to PIO mode. This indicates windows got an
>> error reading. I've just tested #3 by changing the drive ID, but no joy.
>> Perhaps someone has greater insights on this?
>>
>> It could be a limitation of the architecture of the particular hardware
>> design perhaps, a speed issue, a vol ID issue, or something else. It
>> might also be a spinup issue. Both new drives are from the same mfg as
>> the orig, but are 3Gb/s rather than the orig 1.5Gb/s.
>>
>> BTW, DMA mode gives about 100+MB/s performance, PIO<8MB/s. It isn't an
>> option...
>>
>> Does this sound familiar to anyone? ANY pointers as I grope around
>> without bus analyzers or driver source code?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> -Skip
>>
>>
>>      
-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist