Howdy Folks.
Is there any way I can disengage my second hard drive through Windows (XP)apart from actually physically pulling the plug out?

I use my 2nd drive quite frequently as a backup and storage of music and piccies, so it has 30MB on it. My twice weekly virus scan takes soooooooo long and I'm not sure wether the scan works the same as XP 'search' - it jumps from drive to drive and appears to search in alphabetical order.

thanks , and greetings from a chilly NZ.

Through the bios. When it says press delete to enter setup or whatever when U first turn on the machine.

ivnj

Are you using Windows XP Professional? If so, just use Disk Management.

Start, Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage->Disk Management

Right-Click on the device you want to disable and click on Properties. At the bottom of the window, select 'Use this device (enable)' and change it to 'Do not use this device (disable)'.

ivnj - thanks for the input, but the idea was to enable/disable the 2nd HHD from within Windows so I can switch it on/off before and after scanning.

Chris - actually, I am using Home Edition (perhaps I should have mentioned that initially ) but thanks for steering me in the right direction. HE has this function in a slightly different order. For anyone wanting to know:
right-click My computer/Manage
highlight & right-click on Disk management/All tasks/Properties
Hardware tab - select drive – then click properties

I now keep my 2nd drive switched off in case someone designs a Trojan that roots around in drives other than the system drive too.

greetings