Smarware shouldn’t be an issue, I uninstalled it too. Did you go though the full path from USB to drive and make sure there are no sleep settings set some place. You may need to go into advanced power settings and the device manager both. What backup software are you using? Make sure there isn’t a setting there. When the dive is connected find the driver in device manager and delete it manually remove the drive then reboot system and reconnect drive. It should load a fresh driver then. I can’t think of much else.
My backup program is Acronis True Image Home 2011.
My drive (s) have been behaving normally now. Don’t really understand all I don’t know about this.
Maybe I was hit by a cosmic ray (watching too much science stuff on TV).
I tried to make sense out of the USB Root stuff in Device Manager.
I could not relate the listings to the individual physical ports on my PC.
As I understand USB ports is this.
The drive’s USB cable supplies the USB data lines (D+ and D-).
It also supplies 5 Volts DC for the logic circuitry in the drive.
The AC adapter supplies 12 Volts DC for the drive’s motor (and maybe other stuff ?).
I have a Powered USB Hub which supplies the 5 Volts (5 Volts from PC ends here) and just passes the data lines thru from the PC to the drive. The AC adapter is connected as usual.
So when my PC shuts down, the Data goes away but the 5 volts and 12 volts remain on. I don’t know the state of the drive’s D+ and D- lines.
So maybe when the PC is turned back on, perhaps what happens depends on what state the data lines at the drive were last found.
Too much info!
Anyway, if I have to cycle the power to the drive to wake it up, so be it.
Or maybe I’ll have Acronis not shut the PC down (not being very Green).