I've seen a related question on this website regarding a Linux system. I have the same question on a Windows XP OS. I bought a Winchester USB external HD, and found out from technical support that the sleep feature is in the firmware and cannot be turned off. I'm looking for an application that will automatically read/write to that drive periodically to keep that timer resetting (every 5 minutes?). Is anyone aware of a small application for Windows XP that will do that?
Thanks for your help.
Any text editor with an autosave function would do it. You could also write a batch file to get a directory listing, and have it act recursively (call itself) after a set time period. Or use windows scheduler to execute it.
Make batch (.BAT) file something like this:
@echo off
:start
copy c:\windows\notepad.exe g:\ (Or whatever your external drive is)
choice /N /D Y /T 120 (The 120 is the delay in seconds)
goto :start
You could try NoSleepHD.
http://nosleephd.codeplex.com/
It writes an empty text file to your chosen drive every few minutes (you can choose the minutes) to stop the drive going to auto-sleep mode.
google: nosleephd
Ashx