AwakeGuard Manual

Version 0.1.0 / (c) Allisone Inc. / Freeware

1. What is AwakeGuard?

External USB hard drives spin down to save power after a period of inactivity. When you then open a file, Explorer freezes for 5–10 seconds while the drive spins back up. AwakeGuard keeps your chosen external drives from sleeping by gently "poking" them at a set interval with a harmless read, so they are always instantly ready.

2. Features

Zero writes	Never writes to the disk — safe for drive lifespan, and safe for recording / backup drives.
No admin rights	Runs with normal user privileges.
Tiny, no runtime	Single EXE ~190 KB. No .NET or other runtime required.
Smart defaults	Automatically targets external / USB / removable drives (never touches internal SSDs).
Configurable	Choose the poke interval (15/30/60/120 s) and which drives to keep awake.

3. Requirements

Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit)

4. How to use

Run the installer (setup.exe), or launch AwakeGuard.exe directly from the zip.
A disk icon appears in the system tray (bottom-right notification area).
Right-click the icon to open the menu.

Running / Paused	Pause or resume (double-click the icon also toggles it).
Target drives	Check the drives you want to keep awake.
Interval	How often to poke the drives.
Start with Windows	Turn on to auto-run from the next sign-in.
About / Exit	Version info / quit.

Typically you just check your external drive under "Target drives" and turn on "Start with Windows".

5. How it works (zero-write method)

A normal read is served from the OS memory cache and never reaches the platters, so it cannot keep the drive awake. AwakeGuard creates a single 4 KB marker file .awakeguard.dat (hidden) on each target drive once, then reads it with FILE_FLAG_NO_BUFFERING. That read always reaches the physical disk, resetting its idle timer without writing anything.

6. If sleep still happens

Some external drives have a very short built-in (firmware) idle timer. If so, set the "Interval" menu to a shorter value such as 15 seconds.

7. About the SmartScreen warning

This software is not code-signed yet, so Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" on first run. Click More info → Run anyway to start it.

8. Uninstall

Turn off "Start with Windows" and choose "Exit" from the tray menu.
Installer version: remove via Settings > Apps, or "Uninstall AwakeGuard" in the Start menu. Zip version: delete AwakeGuard.exe.
Delete the hidden .awakeguard.dat file at the root of each drive (unchecking a drive removes it automatically).
Delete the settings folder %APPDATA%\AwakeGuard.