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Certain BSODs (e.g., 0xc000021a) will say that the system has been shut down to prevent further problems. Obviously this is not actually the case since the message can be viewed on screen, however, the hard-drives are shut down. This is quite annoying because it adds unnecessary wear and tear to the drive and in all likelihood, the user is going to press the Reset button to reboot, requiring the drives to spin up again anyway.

Does anybody know of a way to configure Windows so that it does not turn off the hard-drives on a BSOD? There do not seem to be any related options that I can find; only an option to not reboot which is already selected.

Synetech
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    Is your computer BSODing frequently enough for this to actually become a problem? (stop everything is probably the safest thing to do when the OS has determined it is borked - what if the disk controller driver has malfunctionned?) – Mat Apr 21 '12 at 22:35
  • Even once is too much; and it’s a software issue. (It doesn’t actually stop *everything* now does it; the fans are still spinning, the video-card is still active…) – Synetech Apr 22 '12 at 00:50
  • First time I have seen someone actually want to live with frequent bsods rather than fix the real problem. One purpose of a bsod is to protect hardware from potential damage. – Moab Apr 22 '12 at 15:12
  • Who said anything about not fixing it or that it’s frequent? Once again, it is not a hardware issue; it is a *software* issue, and having the drives shut down for nothing only adds to the work since it increases the reboot time and adds wear-and-tear to the drives, thus **increasing** damage (if it really were trying to prevent damage, it would shut down the whole system, not just the drives). I don’t understand the complaints. People ask about preventing auto-restart on BSOD, and nobody whines about that; this is similar. If you don’t know, then just leave it, nagging doesn’t answer anything. – Synetech Apr 22 '12 at 15:42
  • @Synetech: I'll be more constructive then: Why is a single spin down because of a single BSOD that happens once in a long while so important for you to eliminate? There are many other factors which might be easier to manipulate than that one spin down. I'm really thinking that you are focusing too much on something of no importance; so, I would love to see something that backs your assumption up. While I am a fan of optimizing stuff a bit too far, this sounds like a pretty weird idea. I'm not going to comment any further than this, but you're making us wonder what makes this question useful... – Tamara Wijsman Apr 22 '12 at 21:43
  • What assumption? If I get a BSOD (especially from a software error), what good does shutting down only the disk(s) do? The motherboard, fans, video-card, CPU, etc. are all still active. Yes, the drives have data, but it’s unlikely that there would be any more data loss (most BSODs don’t shut the drives down; and the file-system is completely intact each time I have seen this). Shutting the drives down causes over a minute of delay to get back to Windows while the BIOS initializes the IDE controller, spins up the drives, detects them, and so on, making testing a chore, so fixing it is a hassle. – Synetech Apr 25 '12 at 03:08
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    Oh, and like I already said, IT ADDS UNNECESSARY **WEAR-AND-TEAR** and accumulation to the SMART data of ALL of the drives. Again, I don’t see why anyone would have such an objection to a simple configuration question. If I asked how to disable a memory dump on BSOD, you would have just answered it because you know how to, but because you don’t know how to disable shutting off the drives on BSOD, you question the reason for the question as though I’m asking something suspicious and malicious. :roll: – Synetech Apr 25 '12 at 03:12
  • @Synetech: You should consider replacing your drive if it takes over a minute, because nowadays I don't see any of drives do that. Or perhaps the problem lies with your BIOS then? Have fun rewriting that or the firmware of your HDD. No, I'm not questioning that. I'm just noting here that while there are many significant things to do, you just took something that is not significant at all. Contributing time to this is a waste and actually results in more WEAR-AND-TEAR in the end. Since you're yelling and being ignorant, rather than attempting to actually research and learn; I'm gone... – Tamara Wijsman Apr 25 '12 at 12:12
  • It’s not just the drive; they spin up in a few seconds, but the BIOS does not even initialize them right away. I have reduce the IDE timeouts in the BIOS to 10 seconds. I would be happy to get a new, cutting edge system if you are willing to pay for it. :roll: I don’t see how *I’m* the one being ignorant when I’m the one trying to learn something new (how to configure a part of Windows). You’re gone? So what, you obviously don’t know the answer to this question anyway and have been anything but helpful. – Synetech Apr 26 '12 at 00:53
  • @Synetech: We've already told you the answer twice, but you're just being ignorant. Can you proof me that re-initialization does not take place? No, you can't, which confirms the validity of our answers... – Tamara Wijsman Apr 26 '12 at 05:51
  • No, you have *not* answered the question; you only gave peripheral advice which I did not ask for. An actual answer to this question would be something along the lines of *Yes, you can disable it by setting this or that registry entry* or *No, that is not possible; as such-and-such authority said in such-and-such page, Windows always shuts down the drives on BSOD*. surfasb’s answer is far more fitting than yours because it indicates that Windows is not the one doing it at all. If that’s the case, then fine, but you keep implying that it *is* doing it; so there is/should be a way to stop it. – Synetech Apr 27 '12 at 00:32

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Upon a reboot, everything gets reinitialized, even your hard drives. They couldn't get reinitialized without first spinning down and up again, this is similar to doing a reboot in which it also changes the speed of the drive. Keeping the drives in the state they were in at the crash is a very bad idea, especially when you are experiencing hardware related crashes.

I would be far more concerned as to why you are experiencing BSODs than to why you want to do this, apart from a Graphics issue that I resolved I never had any BSODs and you shouldn't have much either. You are better off obtaining a stable system than trying to do something that does not really matter.

Technically, one could rework the hardware / BIOS / OS to behave that way but that would be a high cost for a very small benefit. Currently, Windows can't do this because it has no control over it; I even doubt if someone ever had the idea to implement support for this kind of idea. The D really stands for Death...

Tip: If you want to spare out wear / tear, try minimizing the disk I/O your operating system performs. I would be far more concerned about the head than the platter(s), because the platter(s) are meant to rotate anyway. I often hear disk recovery stories where the heads got affected first, so I would think of it as the weakest component, of course statistics might tell otherwise. That's as far as I've heard about it...

Tamara Wijsman
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  • What are you talking about? Most of the BSODs I have seen did *not* shut anything down. There is one specific BSOD that is shutting down (only) the hard-drives. And once *again*, it is a **software** issue, not a hardware problem. – Synetech Apr 25 '12 at 03:13
  • @Synetech: BSODs were you can continue using your OS sound cool; but joking aside, this is a hardware problem because re-initialization is part of the firmware of the HDD, not part of the software installed on your computer. – Tamara Wijsman Apr 25 '12 at 12:07
  • What are you talking about? There are different kinds of BSODs, some with more information, some with less. Most of the usual ones leave the drives spinning, and this *one* shuts them down. For the final time, this is not a hardware issue. I can reproduce it by using specific files in a specific folder. It is likely a driver or memory access issue (possibly due to DEP). – Synetech Apr 26 '12 at 00:50
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    Re-initialization is inevitable regardless BSOD unless you change the firmware of your hardware. – Tamara Wijsman Apr 26 '12 at 05:53
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Actually, the drive is stopped for all the OS is concerned. The Blue Screen you see is quite exceptional because the file system driver itself could be the cause of the stop error. Which is why the core dump is written to the root of the system drive.

For all intents and purposes, the OS has no other control.

The fans spinning, hardrive moving, lights flashing are controlled by your BIOS/Motherboard/Powersuppy, which are outside the control of your OS. For more support, you should ask them.

surfasb
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  • It’s not the file-system driver (I can semi-reliably reproduce it by using/running/manipulating a few of the ZIP files in a specific folder). It is interesting that you are indicating that the OS is not the one shutting the drives down, but I don’t see how the BIOS or drive controllers would be the one to do so. Both the IDE and SATA drives are shut down when it happens and there are no events logged or dumps generated. This did not start until a week ago, right after I deleted some of the MS MFC/CRT DLLs from System32 and moved them to a separate directory in the path. – Synetech Apr 25 '12 at 03:17