Hard drive won't sleep anymore

[Vlk]

Yes, that's basically correct. Due to a limitation in the avast XML storage, it does not support storing of old sessions (session results). This is not a limitation of XML itself, this is the limitation of the current implementation of the avast XML storage...

Since the Home Edition doesn't let you access the sessions anyway (it is a feature of the Enhanced UI which is missing from the Home Edition), switching to XML should be completely benign for Home Edition users...

There's a plan to create a whole new storage that will support everything and still won't require any OS drivers (such as ODBC/Jet).


Vlk

[Avanti63]

IGOR,

 :-[Last night I did as you suggested and set Database=XML  In an attempt to test and see if this worked I set my monitor to sleep at 1 min.; disk drive to shut down at 3 min. and computer to go on standby at 5 min. ( I am not sure how to tell the difference in the last two).

After 1 min the monitor shut down… a few min later the light on the computer front went from green to yellow and the hard drive seemed to shut down.   I just let it sit for a while.   After about 5 min the monitor came back to life and so did the hard drive.  I still didn’t touch anything.  This process repeated itself two more times and it finally stayed asleep.   It remained that way for about an hour.  I then figured that it must have fixed the problem.   I used the computer for a little while.  To my surprise things seemed work much snappier than before.  I don’t know it this was real or not, but I really do think things got faster.  What did that change really do?

Well, thinking all was now fine I reset the power management settings back to 10 min. for monitor to go to sleep; disk drive to shut down at 15 min.; standby at 20 min.   I logged of the computer and went to bed.  I checked on the computer when I got up this morning.  Well it either stayed awake all night or it just woke up early.   The monitor was on and so was the hard drive.   I don’t understand.   Should I have let the time intervals set to the smaller increments?   I used to work with the values that I set.    

I shut the computer down and went to work.   I will try again tonight.   Any more suggestions?

[Lisandro]

There's a plan to create a whole new storage that will support everything and still won't require any OS drivers (such as ODBC/Jet).

Thanks Vlk and Igor. Seems very good to be 'independent' of that drivers.
Avanti, good luck with your research... Standby problems are really very personal in my opinion. It's not easy to reproduce the same computer/applications/services running and so on...  

[Steele]

Hi Avanti63  

I'm sorry none of my suggestions have worked for you.

I do understand your frustration.
I do believe you when you say that Avast has caused your hard drives to not power down since they were powering down before.

I used to use Windows Me like you... how do you like that operating system btw? Personally I did not like it, as it had a lot of bugs and little annoying problems with certain services and programs not running and functioning correctly. Windows Me was one of Microsofts WORST operating systems I'm sorry to say.   However... that does not mean you should not continue to use it based on my little opinion!!  

May I inquire if you have, for instance... gone to Microsoft Windows Update to download all the critical and needed recommended patches for Windows Me? I'm sure that there are PLENTY of patches for the Me operating system. Maybe even one patch that addresses the power setting issue you are now having? Just because you were not having the hard drive problem before...does not mean that Microsoft has already addressed that issue?

That might be something to look into?  

I am however curious to see if this problem could be re-produced on "YOUR" computer with another operating system? Windows Me is very much like Win98SE...except Windows Me looks a little nicer. However, I would not go THAT far unless this hard drive shutdown issue is critical for you. I never power down my hard drives when my PC is turned on. I might use those power saving functions if I was leaving my PC on 24/7.

All my best to you Avanti63!  
And if you have not done so... see if there are critical and recommended updates for your PC. There COULD be one specific patch for a power setting problem?

I really don't know though.
Good luck my friend.  

[Avanti63]

Thanks to all for the comments and help.  I have heard of others with similar problems to mine and yes....it seems they are very tricky to figure out.   I may or may not get it solved.   Should not be big deal I guess.  I have gone to MS on a regular basis and downloaded all critical updates.  I often think that I would like to strip my drive down and reload everything clean (if I could remember it all).  I suspect a clean load would fix this and some other minor problems that have gathered over the last few years.

Actually I have enjoyed using ME and have not had that many bugs.  I think I have one of the last revisons to ME.  Maybe it was pretty well debugged by then.  I have not found it as annoying as many other people have.   I will probably ride it out till I get my next computer.

Thanks to all who have commeted to me.  I will keep checking around and see what happens.

[Avanti63]

Just an update....Things seem to working fine again.   I don't quite understand but thats ok.   The combination of turning VRDB OFF and changing the .ini file to read DATABASE=XML seems to have fixed the problem.  Drive have been shutting down as expected now for a couple of days.

[Lisandro]

Just an update....Things seem to working fine again.   I don't quite understand but thats ok.   The combination of turning VRDB OFF and changing the .ini file to read DATABASE=XML seems to have fixed the problem.  Drive have been shutting down as expected now for a couple of days.

Happy you win  
Do not forget to 'run' VRDB manually from time to time (once a month for instance)