How to request HD to stop spinning?

[T400plus]

I am trying to set my unused T400.It is with XP from the evil Empire..SP 3.
Where are the HD settings ?.
Notebook Hardware control also doesnot work ?.

:---T400 is 2765T6U with 4 GB memory,9 cell wxga+,heat on the right side near fingerprint capture device....

[Harryc]

Look in the Lenovo power manager under idle timers. There should be a setting to stop hard disk rotation after any time you set.

[T400plus]

thank you.
I traced the settings in power manager ....they were 3 mins (battery) and 15 mins(AC).Good enough so i did not temper them.
They appeared all greyed out ?
Actually to be honest i was looking forward to copying these values from here to a T41 with a 4 head 160 GB hard disk which heats up
the RHS of my laptop palm rest like a oven......

[Harryc]

They are probably greyed out because you are using a default profile. Create a custom profile in PM if you want to customize settings.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Err... It shouldn't get very warm at all...
Install HWMonitor and check the HDD temps; I range in between 35-38C doing regular work and upwards of 45C doing highly intensive disk work. Nothing to make the palmrest too hot.

[T400plus]

After requesting the setup to stop after 5 minutes of being ignored ,the heat is not noticable.
The HD temp was never > 35 - 38 range.However my sensitive skin would start baking after 40 minutes
or so.(it does not feel that now).The heat was somehow piling up above the HD.
My inference is that multi head disks are not for laptops being used in hot (I mean Indian , room temp.)
environments.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Hmm...

Is your drive highly fragmented or is the file placement poorly optimized? If so, then you may be incurring extraneous seeking which would contribute to extra temperatures, lowered responsiveness, and reduced drive lifespan. (Jeez, I sound like a commercial.) Run a defragmentation tool like UltimateDefrag and have it sort out your disk.

[T400plus]

yes, You may be right.my disk which has only 2 small partitions of 80 Gb each is nearly filled
up with all useful stuff like compilers and movies ..No ..not any songs.And no office software either.

My friend in the hd data recovery business has informed me not to buy hard disks with multiple heads
in the first place.
Perhaps, as solid state hd prices are falling i will junk this multi platter(2 disk,4 heads) demon as soon as I have a pile
of notes to support the economy.

[Colonel O'Neill]

Scorpio Blues seem to run fairly cool. They won't be a big sacrifice on performance or capacity either, nor will they take a huge chunk out of your wallet.

Regardless, despite being full, you can still defrag it. Better yet, NTFS compress the entire drive. This gives you free space (free as in unallocated as well as gratuitous).