Being the boss of your Optical drives

NapalmDeath · Post by **NapalmDeath** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 5:12 am

How does one adjust the spin down time of optical drives in winXP?
Is it in the registry?
Hidden in some obscure settings file?

When XP loads the optical drives spins up to full speed, and sits there until about 1 min after the OS is full loaded. It then "spins down".
I'd really prefer the optical drive spins up only when accessed. WinXP will initially access all drives on boot, but I'd like to reduce the time to spin down.

I tried using the Nero SpeedDisk Utility, and while it would adjust my spin rate(40X, 4X etc), the option to adjust the spin down from minutes to seconds to microseconds, just didnt seem to work.

I found the master setting for turning off "autoplay".
from cmd prompt, GPEDIT.MSC (group policy editor)
There is a list of master settings, one is enable/disable autoplay.
You can also adjust individual profiles, but this setting effects them all.

POLIST8 · Post by **POLIST8** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:56 am

Is the CD-ROM deselected as a boot option in your BIOS? I think that might help, but I could be wrong.

boardsportsrule · Post by **boardsportsrule** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 7:54 am

oculd u show more of where it's at? i cannot find it!

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 9:46 am

The "AUTOPLAY" option you've found is nothign to do with spin-down time.

Though if someone DOES know of that setting, I'm curious too

.

The AUTOPLAY option is purely for "when you put a CD into the DVD/CD-ROM" that Windows tries to automatically run it - ergo, run "AUTORUN.INF" or presents you with that irritating (if XP) dialogue "what should I DO?"

Hope this helps a little. If only to point out that you're on the wrong track.

boardsportsrule · Post by **boardsportsrule** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 10:34 am

yeah, i know thats what it does, but i want it off!! and i looked in the gsediter thing, and i couldnt find it

shathal · Post by **shathal** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 1:17 pm

Ahhhh - RIGHT.

As luck would have it, I have followed a hunch that I'd had saved an e-mail somewhere on JUST this subject. And, indeed, I have found it. Here's the contents

.

The XP Pro stuff DEFINATELY works, I've used this myself.

=======================

XP Home:

Go to Regedit - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer

Create a new value called: NoDriveTypeAutoRun
Type is: DWORD
Value is: 0x000000b5 (181)

And may need to Restart.

XP Pro

Click Start, Run and enter GPEDIT.MSC
On the left - Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System
Find the line that says "Turn AutoPlay Off" - Double click it and change to Enable.

=====================

Enjoy

.

- Shathal.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Apr 21, 2004 2:30 pm

XP spins the drives at boot, yes. But it does it noisily and for 1 min ONLY IF THERE IS A DISC IN THE DRIVE !!!

Take the disc out. Try Alcohol120% or whatever to put that disk on your silent HDD