Windows 10: All External Drives Never Sleep

Happy Holidays everyone.

For some time now I have been experiencing the problem that no external HDD sleeps and I must simply keep them unplugged until needed. Nothing I do in Power Options works. Last week I allowed my system to install all available Windows Updates, and yesterday while I was installing a new graphics card to handle my new 4K SMART TV I added a USB 3.0 card which contains 2 ports. I plugged in 2 external drives to see if they would go to sleep after being connected off the mainboard ports and still all 4 external drives stayed running all night. I've changed Power Options from 1 minute to 20 minutes but they never shut off no matter what the time is set to.

My current version of Windows is 10 Pro, 1903, OS Build 18362.535.

No changes I've made through the registry, Device Manager, nor Policies through each HDD Properties have worked.

Anyone have the solution to this issue? I feel it is just a matter of time before all these drives burn up and all data will be lost.

Thank you. Cole

:)

 

External drive

Hi Richard,

There are several factors that can cause your external drive to not read DVDs even though the system is recognizing the device. This could be caused by a driver that needs to updated or corrupted files. For us to resolve your concern, kindly answer the questions
below:

• Just to confirm, the device that is not working properly is a external DVD optical drive?
• Were there any recent changes or updates installed on your computer?
• Have you tried to plug the external drive to a different port on your computer?

As a initial recommendation, we suggest that your run the built in troubleshooter in Windows 10. Kindly refer to the steps below:

• Type “Troubleshooting” in the Search bar and press Enter.
• Click on “View All” in the top left corner.
• This will display the list of troubleshooters which are built-in in the computer. You can click on
  Hardware and Devices from the list and you can run the troubleshooter.

This will check for common errors that affect hardware on your computer and attempts to correct them.

We look forward to your response after completing the steps.

 

External Hard Drive

Hi John,

We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps below:

• Open your External Hard Drive file in File Explorer.
• Type the name of the file you want to search on the search box and click Enter.

The file will show up in Search Results and you will be able to move it to the correct folder.

Let us know if you need further help.

 

Loss of External drives

Hi,

For better assistance, kindly verify the queries below:

• What is the make and model of the external drives?
• Have you checked if both drivers are recognized on the BIOS settings?
• Are you connecting the external hard drives via USB?
• What are the troubleshooting steps have you done so far for this issue?

Looking forward to your response.

Regards.