Any way to manually power off a HD from within the OS?

[neomits]

I'm curious if there is some program, or some way I could turn off a harddrive when I don't need it. I have this 120 gig HD that I use for storage of random stuff but I rarely access it. The reason I want to turn it off is because it is about 10 times louder than anything else in my computer.

So can I shut it off. Other than using the power options of shutting donw a HD after 5 minutes of no use. This kinda works but sometimes in the middle of games it'll power up randomly and cause me to freeze up for like 10 seconds.

I have 2 other drives. The OS is on one of those drives which are much quieter. The only thing on this noisy drive is data like downloaded shows and pictures and such. Stuff I dont' need in order for windows to run.

Technically I am able to unplug the HD while the computer is running and have no effect at all to my system (not a good idea I know).

 

[airfoil]

There isnt a way that I know of where you could selectively turn off a particular hard drive. What I'd suggest is, if you use the drive occassionally, buy an external case to mount the hard drive. These cases are available in 3.5 & 5.5 inch form factors and the 5.5 cases will allow you to use an optical device as an external drive too. The cases have their own power switches and run off an AC connection.

I got myself one of these cases from dealsonic for $35 and it works fine.

 

[ROcHE]

I used a little utility called "IDE Sleep or HD Sleep" (I think so) a couple of years ago. However I don't know if it still exist.