Can you turn off harddisk

i was wondering, can you turn off a harddisk when u dont want it on, i know u can use the time limit thing in power options, but i was wondering if theres another way?

 

I wouldn't worry too much Steve, Hard disks are made to run almost continuously with little problems. I personally don't leave mine set with the MS default of "Never ". I set spindown to usually 30mins or 1 hour. At works most of the PC's (W2K) never spin down and some run 24/7. Most run 3+ years before their lease expires and they are replaced. I don't see the nescessity of using "Never" as bearings will eventually wear. But using something like I do (1 hour or so) would surfice.

 

Hi SteveS...

I use a Maxtor Personal Storage 5000LE.

With WinXP I can shut the device off anytime as it's USB 2.0. I right-click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the System Tray then left-click on "Safely Remove Hardware "...voila it can now be safely removed and shut off with my workstation still operational.

 

i have two drives:
windows and program files
storage,

the storage drive isnt always being used but obviously is still running, so i was wondering if u could just turn it off like windows does, surely if windows can be set to do it, a program cant be programmed to do it??

 

that was ment to read, surely a program CAN be programmed to do it...