Drive spinning down?

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Desktop PC with XP MCE SP2, under power options, turn off hard disks:
never. Despite which, the drives seem to start up with a whirring sound
if the machine has been idle and I suddenly turn up to do something at
it. This is accompanied by apparent slowdown in the interface, as would
be expected if it's blocking waiting for I/O.

Could it be something else (a fan)? If it's the hdds how do I keep them
always-spinning? (Drive life is shortened by frequent restarts. Why do
you think laptop drives crash so often? It's frequent stops and starts,
as much as their being more subject to knocks and changes of
orientation while running.)

.

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