Secondary Hard Drive tends to power down when inactive

[Zork Nemesis]

There's one thing that's been bugging me about my new computer. My secondary hard drive seems to power off if it's not accessed in some set period of time (not sure what the time limit is). When it's in this inactive state, any time I attempt to access it, be it browse files or run a program off it, it takes four or five seconds extra to spin up and get going so I can use it. Furthermore when it does this, the computer essentially locks up while it's doing its thing. Occasionally it seems that, if left inactive for long enough, it will come back on for some reason (probably some Windows function) and lock up everything again when it does so. For the most part, all that happens to be on the secondary drive is just about every game on Steam I have installed (TF2 and L4D2 are the only games not on the secondary drive), Final Fantasy 11, and my collection of raw .avi recordings.

I've looked through my PC settings and can't find anything that sticks out, but is there any way I can prevent the hard drive from spinning down or whatever it's doing? I assume it's a power saving feature of sorts but I can't find anything in Windows 7 that allows me to tell it not to save power by powering down.

Incidentally, my external hard drive does not spin down when inactive, only when I turn it's power off or unplug it.

[SchruteFarms]

Do you have the latest drivers installed?

[Crusty Juggler]

Control Panel> Hardware and Sound> Power Options> Change Plan Settings> Change Advanced Power Settings (it's on the bottom)> Hard Disk> Turn Off Hard Disk After> *time in minutes you want the HDD to turn off after*

See if "USB Selective Suspend" is turned off under "USB Settings" on the same screen. That would explain the USB drive not spinning down. If it's on, then you might have to visit the manufacture's site for your external drive and see if they have a utility to change the USB drive's spin down time.

Edited for spelling and grammar.

[Zork Nemesis]

Control Panel> Hardware and Sound> Power Options> Change Plan Settings> Change Advanced Power Settings (it's on the bottom)> Hard Disk> Turn Off Hard Disk After> *time in minutes you want the HDD to turn off after*

I think that's exactly what I was looking for.
Also I don't really care that my external drive isn't powering off, I was merely pointing out that it seems to be exempt from this deactivation.