Windows 8.1 powering off USB Drives

Since upgrading to 8.1, Windows will shut down my hard drive bay connected by USB after about 10 minutes. I didn't have this issue in Windows 8 as I just went in and changed the hard drive sleep time to Never. However Windows 8.1 seems to be ignoring this and powering off my USB drives. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Solution 1:

I came across the blog post Help! After installing Windows 8.1, my USB drive disappears or file transfers stop unexpectedly… when trying to resolve problems with my Seagate Expansion 3 TB drive which would power down after several minutes with no access despite power save setting set to "never" shut down.

This began happening after doing a fresh install of Windows 8.1. I followed instructions concerning a registry hack and the problem has been fixed.

Solution 2:

Go into Device Manager, click on Universal Serial Bus controllers, right click (or Alt + Return) on each of the entries labeled USB Root Hub, choose Properties, and click on tab Power Management. Make sure the check mark in "Allow computer to turn off device" DOES NOT HAVE A CHECK.

Do that for every USB Root Hub device in Device Manager. Your external hard disk drive will no longer shut off.