power off the DVD optical drive?

i noticed an icon in the taskbar, which indicates that the optical drive power is on. from there you can switch the power off. is this worth doing? i mean, i don't use the DVD drive often... that will save power? will switching it on/off somehow damage the drive (i think not, but just checking)...

 

it won't damage the drive.
you can turn it off when you're using the battery, and it can save power

 

I've had some trouble with this - as once it turns off, it sometimes (often) disappears from the My Computer list and won't return, even when I turn the power back on. I usually have to re-boot the computer to get it to come back. Also the eject button on top of the machine will no longer work until a re-boot occurs.

Anyone else have similar issues? Any quick fix for how to at least make the drive usable without a reboot after it's turned off?

 

I've just remembered I saw this in Vista but not XP. Does anyone know of a similar (?freeware) utility I can use to switch off my ODD in XP when I'm not using it?

 

Download "VAIO Power Management" from sony's support site.. that should do it..

 

i don't turn it off manually, i leave it to the vaio power management to do so (set optical drive to auto-off).

when i need it, i right click on the tray icon and select power on. it will take a few seconds for the drive to be recognized (or the eject button to work).

once you take your disc out, after some time the vaio power management will switch it off for you.

 

this update is not getting installed on sr-290 cto, it says its not intended for your system ....

I think this maybe the reason I don't see the option to power down the ODD....