Disable searching external harddrive while booting

[Jleagle]

Hi, my PC ran out of room so i started to use a USB external hard drive to keep files, the problem i have is when the computer turns on it searches through all the files on the hard dirve (presumably looking for an OS). This can take ages because of the amount of files, is there a way to disable windows or the computer doing this?

Thanks.

[-pops-]

With my external drives, I keep them powered off until they are needed.

At bootup, the CPU and PSU are working very hard and the addition of unnecessary work puts strain on the machine as well as lengthening boot time.

You could also disable file searching of the drive:

With the drive connected and running, RIGHT click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management -> RIGHT click on the drive you are interested in -> Properties and under the General tab untick the "Allow indexing service - - - " at the bottom. There is then a question about folders and subfolders tick as appropriate and then click Apply.

Be careful working in this part of your computer - clicking in the wrong place might do something you don't want.