how to prevent that some programs start up drives

[vci]

in my main system i have 2*250GB sata disks to save all the stuff I have

these hard drives need much power and I used to power them down (hdd doze mode// hdd standby)

to ensure the life expectancy I dont want to start and stop them every 5 minutes (I only access them once or twice a day)

but some programs power up these hard drives when they start, vmware e.g.

I HATE THAT!

because those startups lower the hdds life expectancy ...

someone knows a way to prevent programs powering up hard drives?

or any software tool where you can control startup/standby? (the windows power options are not very good ...)

thanks in advance

[ender341]

is the VMware virtual HD on that drive? if so that would be the problem. other than that i don't know what to tell you, i think you can access the a programs access rights in the regedit, or using gpedit.msc if you have pro.

[digitalfrost]

Well have the same problem, VMWare and all old DOS programs make my harddrives spin up. Sometimes they also randomly startup by themselfes. I haven't found a solution to this problem.