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Currently, my external HDD beeps and spins up then I reach over and yank out the USB cable from my desktop because I don't wish to be disturbed.

Instead can I make a desktop icon that when I click on it disables the USB hard drive meaning it cannot be detected by explorer?

To then click another icon and make it appear to explorer?

Eric Huelin
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  • Not sure if you can keep it from spinning. But I'm sure you can look at the power settings and set it to spin down after 5 minutes. – RamonRobben Feb 25 '17 at 21:46
  • Hard drives spin up because the file system is performing read/write operations. Disconnecting the cord while a drive is spinning will lead to file corruption. That's why you're supposed to eject USB devices before disconnecting. Modern file systems perform numerous background tasks. If you hope to stop the drive from spinning up, you'd be best served by researching those tasks and controlling them. – HighTechGeek Feb 26 '17 at 00:08

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Download SmartMonTools and use bat/cmd file(you can create shortcut on your desktop) to fire up following command to spin down (put to sleep) ext.drive:

@echo off

Rem Assume your external hard drive assigned to the letter "M"
smartctl.exe -s standby,now M:

If you really want to get rid of external HDD (disable it so it won't show up in explorer) then take a look here how to unmount/mount drives from script

Community
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Alex
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  • Is there a way to achieve the same thing without the tool? – RamonRobben Feb 25 '17 at 22:31
  • @RamonRobben Not sure if one can issue ATA command without some tool, either use tool or set spin down timer in power manager, but it will be applied to all HDD's or unplug HDD from USB, but I think it not what OP wanted – Alex Feb 25 '17 at 22:39
  • Why not just use the "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" button already in the taskbar of every Windows PC when any USB drive is connected? – HighTechGeek Feb 26 '17 at 00:23
  • @HighTechGeek If you would use "Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media" then you need to unplug and re-connect back external device to be recognized again which OP doing right now and want to avoid this – Alex Feb 26 '17 at 01:54
  • @Alex actually he could simply click "scan for hardware changes" in Device Manager to reconnect it. That's just 2 right-click/clicks. Plus he'd have the added bonus of less data corruption. – HighTechGeek Feb 26 '17 at 07:58
  • @HighTechGeek 1. Safe removing wouldn't stop HDD immediately from spinning 2. It wouldn't be 2 clicks, if OP following OS maker recommendations -"Don't work under administrator account", so Dev.manager should run "as administrator" plus password to be able to unlock "Scan for hardware changes" and most important that such action return following error: "Windows cannot use this hardware device because it has been prepared for "safe removal", but it has not been removed from the computer. (Code 47). To fix this problem, unplug this device from your computer and then plug it in again." – Alex Feb 26 '17 at 11:47