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When I put my Windows 8.1 machine to sleep and then remove a USB drive, it wakes up. This is very annoying. Is there anyway to disable it?

C:\Users\TallGuy>powercfg /lastwake
Wake History Count - 1
Wake History [0]
  Wake Source Count - 1
  Wake Source [0]
    Type: Device
    Instance Path: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9C31&SUBSYS_20548086&REV_04\3&11583659&0&A0
    Friendly Name: Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 0100 (Microsoft)
    Description: USB xHCI Compliant Host Controller
    Manufacturer: Generic USB xHCI Host Controller

I have gone into the Device Manager and checked the properties of all the devices under the 'Universal Serial Bus controllers' branch. They all either have the 'Allow this device to wake the computer' option unticked and disabled, or there is no Power Management tab at all.

Universal Serial Bus controllers properties

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  • 1
    There is probably some power related settings in the BIOS so i would look in there first.
    – TheKB
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 8:22
  • 3
    If someone pulls your toenail off while your sleeping , would you wake up :-) Show devices by connection, then trace the path it connects with, and set the hubs and controllers it goes through the same way. But i do not think you will get anywhere doing that either, because you are initiating a device removal, if the comptuer wakes up with it gone and it did not know it left, that could cause major problems. (remember what happens when a storage device does not respond) bad. Even with quick removal options, the device should be removed with the safe removal, prior to sleep.
    – Psycogeek
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 9:35
  • I would wake up with guns a blazing!
    – Moab
    Commented May 26, 2015 at 22:15
  • Surely, though, @Psycogeek, the whole point of having the ability to disable write caching means that whenever the disk is written to, the process is completed and the disk will always be in a state of being able to be "safely removed"....? Although, my only concern with disabled write caching is if any files are being used by the system (such as a Word doc) and the temporary files that are created/being used... are these likely to corrupt more easily?
    – Kinnectus
    Commented May 27, 2015 at 8:14
  • Correct, it should not leave anything in a cache when going on standby anyway, but anytime there was file system connections to it, programs that are expecting to talk with it, there could be issues caused. I do not know enough about files that are still "open" for writing, but that would indeed be an example that could have negative consequences.
    – Psycogeek
    Commented Jun 10, 2015 at 7:59

1 Answer 1

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So after much experimenting, I have found a partial solution. It seems that if you have your mouse or keyboard (or probably any USB device) set to 'Allow this device to wake the computer', the computer will wake when a USB drive is removed. So the solution is to disable the 'Allow this device to wake the computer' for everything.

Kind of annoying though, because it is nice to be able to wake the computer by just whacking the space bar. If anyone has a better solution, please add it and I will change the accepted answer.

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