How to command disk park using laptop with Windows 7

Question

I want to command a disk to park and stop spinning in Windows 7, and I want the disk to stay parked and not spinning persistently through multiple reboots.

I have two drive bays on my Samsung RF711 laptop. I run the OS on a small SSD and I use the other bay for a mechanical 5400 rpm data drive.

When the spinning drive is parked I do not need to worry about jarring my laptop. Can I command the disk to go into a state where the disk does not spin and is not used at all, then command it later to start spinning and become available?

A windows solution is slightly preferred, but any dos command or free utility will do.

Solution

If you're satisfied with the Disk Management option of setting a drive offline, here's a command-line way to do it, from TechNet:

diskpart remove [{letter=d|mount=path|[all]}] [dismount][noerr]

Removes a drive letter or mount point from the volume with focus. If the all parameter is used, all current drive letters and mount points are removed. If you do not specify a drive letter or mount point, then DiskPart removes the first drive letter or mount point that it encounters.

Read the link to see more about this. I would suggest an example something along the lines of:

diskpart remove letter=x dismount

where x is the drive letter you wish to set offline.

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EDIT: As requested, here is something that works on my local D: drive.

I created a script (which I called script.txt but can be called anything), as follows:

select volume 4
remove dismount all

Then from the command line, I typed this command:

diskpart /s script.txt

The response from my command was as follows (I've edited the line spacing):

Volume 4 is the selected volume.
DiskPart successfully removed the drive letter or mount point.
DiskPart successfully dismounted and offlined the volume.

Comments

[Admin]

The Windows Disk Management utility can make a disk "offline", which puts a little red down arrow near the Disk number in the left column. Does making a disk offline park the disk? Is there a DOS command to accomplish this?

[Admin]

I tried your example command plus variations of the command with slightly different syntax, but the syntax seems to be wrong each time. Could you edit your answer to include an example command which works?

[Admin]

As requested, please see my edited answer.