Hacking Guide: WD Passport Spindown Fix

[Bladexdsl]

that be awesome if it does!

 

[PNo4]

If you however wanna fix this on the actual HDD.

http://www.ransackery.com/western-digital-...ecover-data.htm


This is how you open a WD Essential.

 

[Bladexdsl]

screw that i'm not taking mine apart.

 

[hdhacker]

I don't have a WD Passport but I do have a WD3200AVJB 3.5" PATA/IDE Drive, in an ASAKA enclsoure. I think I am having the spindown problem. I tried the MarioKart test and when I cross the line after 20+ minutes of inacitivty on the final lap, the game freezes, and I have to hard reboot the Wii.

I tried the HDParm thingy, but I can't locate the drive as the 'hdparm -I hda' command doesn't go beyond letter E. I have about 6 internal HDDs, and an external USB one as mentioned.

How can I select the drive beyond letter E? I'm using Windows Vista 64bit, the cmd for hdparm works fine, I just can't select the drive beyond E as stated.

Thanks

Can anyone help resolve the above? It's not an external hdd, but an OEM drive in an external (Akasa) case. I'm suffering from the spindown problem.

Thanks

The hdparm program won't work through USB. You have to take the drive out of the enclosure and connect it via SATA to your computer.

 

[lucp4rt]

i have this link:
http://www.winvistatips.com/wd-spindown-ut...cess-p14474.php

Process Name: WD Spindown Utility

Filename: ExSpinDn.exe

Fix WD Spindown Utility errors: Run a free scan

WD Spindown Utility Information: Spindown utility "for use with all Western Digital external hard drives except for the Media Center and the Dual-option Backup drives. It is designed to give greater user control over the spindown of the external drive"

i haven't bought a hdd yet so i couldn't try.

 

[hughthehand]

I have this problem with a Seagate 80gb 3.5"

>hdparm -K 1 hdb

hdb:
setting drive keep features to 1 (on)
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(keepsettings) failed: Input/output error

With a Maxtor 120 gb 3.5" I used this fix, and now works correctly, but the Seagate stills freezing randomly. Any suggestion?

?? use seagate software
seagate is the only one who has it's own software to adjust HD properties even while in a (seagate) usb holder

The seagate software didn't recognize my hdd. I think that it is only for the latest models.

 

[Bladexdsl]

sick of this piece of shit wd freezing it's starting to freeze on rune factory too so i'm getting rid of it! what's a good drive that doesn't have spin down problems and is NOT WD?

 

[hdhacker]

sick of this piece of shit wd freezing it's starting to freeze on rune factory too so i'm getting rid of it! what's a good drive that doesn't have spin down problems and is NOT WD?

Seagate. There ought to be a wordfilter on these forums that bans all use of the phrase "Western Digital" and "works."

 

[Bladexdsl]

ok which seagate wiki is down!. yeah i'm never trusting wd again either

 

[manias]

Most people have the 320gb seagate freeagent go (incl me

)
[url=http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FWIE1Y/ref=as...tag=cnet-996-20]http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FWIE1Y/ref=as...tag=cnet-996-20[/url]

Posts merged

i just read that cIOS 11 final will fix the spindown problems ;-)

uhh afaik it will not, it will fix usb peripherals like the network adaptor, not the spindown issue

 

[wii94]

can i fix the problem "Code28" with this tutorial?? i have a My Passport™ Essential™. pls answer fast

edit: i have windows xp

sry for bad english

 

[hdhacker]

ok which seagate wiki is down!. yeah i'm never trusting wd again either

Well it depends on what you want. Me, I like the Seagate FreeAgent Go. It's small and doesn't require an external power source. Yes, you can get a big 1TB drive for the same price as a 500GB tiny drive, but who gives a fuck? 500GB is plenty.

 

[BigNastyCurve]

I still don't understand how my MyPassport Essentials 500GB drive (unmodded) still does fine with tests like the Mario Kart pause test. It stutters for a brief second when the race starts back up, but it's perfectly fine after that. Admittedly I haven't had a whole lot of time to do other tests (like actual gaming), but I know that the hard drive has definitely spun down before unpausing Mario Kart because I can't feel it spinning anymore.

 

[hdhacker]

I still don't understand how my MyPassport Essentials 500GB drive (unmodded) still does fine with tests like the Mario Kart pause test. It stutters for a brief second when the race starts back up, but it's perfectly fine after that. Admittedly I haven't had a whole lot of time to do other tests (like actual gaming), but I know that the hard drive has definitely spun down before unpausing Mario Kart because I can't feel it spinning anymore.

There are three possibilities:

1) Some of the drives have newer firmware to handle spindown issues better. Even if this is true, there's no way to know before you buy it.
2) The test is flawed. Personally, I prefer the 10 minute aerobic boxing in WiiFit since it doesn't require you to pause anything. It's literally 10 minutes of straight gameplay without a disk access.
3) You're doing the test wrong.

No matter which option is true, STAY AWAY from Western Digital hard drives. Period.

 

[Bladexdsl]

ok which seagate wiki is down!. yeah i'm never trusting wd again either

Well it depends on what you want. Me, I like the Seagate FreeAgent Go. It's small and doesn't require an external power source. Yes, you can get a big 1TB drive for the same price as a 500GB tiny drive, but who gives a fuck? 500GB is plenty.

it says in the wiki you have to keep plugging and unplugging it all the time for the wii to detect it. and you need a 3rd party app to format it

 

[WiiBlaster]

ok which seagate wiki is down!. yeah i'm never trusting wd again either

Well it depends on what you want. Me, I like the Seagate FreeAgent Go. It's small and doesn't require an external power source. Yes, you can get a big 1TB drive for the same price as a 500GB tiny drive, but who gives a fuck? 500GB is plenty.

it says in the wiki you have to keep plugging and unplugging it all the time for the wii to detect it. and you need a 3rd party app to format it

All of that about freeagent GO is not true, No problems here i have two of them, works perfectly never have to unplug or replug also you can use the Wii to format it if you wise, but i'm also using the 250GB version not sure if it makes a difference or not

 

[Sayargh]

I know i'm a little behind the times here but have any of you tried also messing with the Automatic Acoustic Management setting?


Basically, the acoustic thing will slow the drive down, I set mine to 254 and it seems to have sped the drive up a bit; I think the USB loader really hates hard drive pauses of any kind...

'hdparm -M254 hdX' and replace X with the letter corresponding to your drive

Also instead of this:

'hdparm -S251 hdX'

you can do this:

'hdparm -S0 hdX' and replace X with the letter corresponding to your drive

This will turn off the drives ability to spin down completely.


Hope this helps, I'm not entirely sure its helped me out yet, other than dumping games seems to be a bit smoother...

 

[hdhacker]

Also instead of this:

'hdparm -S251 hdX'

you can do this:

'hdparm -S0 hdX' and replace X with the letter corresponding to your drive

This will turn off the drives ability to spin down completely.


Hope this helps, I'm not entirely sure its helped me out yet, other than dumping games seems to be a bit smoother...

From what I remember, The WD Passport Essentials doesn't accept a "0" as a setting. It still spun down. the "251" boosts the time out to over 5 hours. Not ideal, but the best you're going to get. Of course, other hard drives may behave differently.

 

[manias]

The mario test is not the be all and end all, playing a game for many hours is more likely to properly test it. Try playing broken sword for about 4 hours to test it, not just letting a game sit there

In the meantime, many WD people are crashing, seagate ppl are not, so if you need a NEW drive, why get a WD one?

 

[Simmy]

i just tested my WD My Passport Elite WD3200ML model... well... don't have any sleep problem, the hdd did go to sleep. as in it did spin down after 10 mins or so... but i let it rest for aroudn 30 mins, on the last lap of mario kart, then drive through the finish line, and all it did was freeze for like half a second, and it went on to spin up and everything loaded properly again, i thnik you guys should be getting the my passport elite(silver colour), that's your best bet.