External Drives keep going to sleep

I think the major part of the problem is that this PC thinks it's a laptop or tablet, rather than a desktop computer connected to a wall socket.

Is there some other firmware that can get rid of these laptop-based power settings?

Thanks Ruz, but when I go into Change Advanced Power Settings, there is nothing there about the hard disks at all. I've expanded every tab and tried right-clicking on them, but there is no mention of the HDDs. In fact, even the C: drive goes to sleep after less than a minute, let alone my connected drives.

I've been going nuts checking every possible setting, but there seems that changing the power settings to external drives is non-existent on my machine. The only place I found something was in Device Manager where I found the USB ports and told it to not turn off the power to these ports, but it still does!

Please understand that I am a photographer, and often have to process thousands of photos, and having to wait for the drives to spool up in between every photo is a real chore and is costing me my sleep!

Maybe I need to exchange it for a new one. Is that covered under warranty?

Thank you for providing an update, George. Let's review your Surface's Power Options and check if the current settings put the hard disk to sleep. Follow these steps:

1. Open Settings > System > Power & sleep.
2. Go to Additional power settings.
3. Click on Change plan settings for the power plan that's currently in use.
4. Select Change advanced power settings.
5. Expand Hard disk and do the same for Turn off hard disk after. You will see in Setting if the hard disk is currently set to switch off after a specific period of time. Change this setting if needed. By design, the setting applies to all hard drives connected to the Surface.
6. If the hard disk is already configured to not turn off but the drives still go to sleep, try creating a different power plan.

In case you need more help, just reply to this post.

I tried everything you suggested, but it's still the same.

Ran the troubleshooter and went through the Device Manager and found the drives listed in 3 different sections, but there was only one section that had the Power tab, so I changed these, but it's still cutting off the power.

All the updates have been done but nothing seems to work.

I wish I could fix this quickly.

Any other suggestions?

Hi George,

Take a look at the Power Management settings for the external drives you connect to the Surface Studio. Follow these steps:

1. Right-click on Start (Windows key + X).
2. Choose Device Manager.
3. Expand Disk drives and locate your drives.
4. Right-click on the drive and choose Properties.
5. Go to the Power Management tab and make sure the box for Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power is unticked. If the option is currently selected, untick the box and click OK.

The Power Troubleshooter should also be able to find any power management issues on your device. To run it, go to Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot> Power > Run the troubleshooter.

I would also suggest you try running the Surface Diagnostic Toolkit if the problem continues after following the suggestions above. This tool will ensure that you have the recommended drivers and firmware updates on your Surface, and check for other underlying software issues. To download the tool, open this link. Remember to perform a forced shutdown after running the SDT so the Surface will be able to reload the software properly. Simply press the power button for 20 seconds to perform a forced shutdown.

I'll be here if you need more help.

Regards.