Hacking MyBook problem

[EnigmaXtreme]

I just got a brand new 1 TB MyBook for my birthday yesterday so i decided to use my old 250 gb WD MyBook for my Wii USB backups, however ive noticed some problems.

If i havent used the wii for a little while and i decide to play a game I click on one of my USB game channels on the Wii menu and nothing loads.

Other times when i try to go into USB Loader GX via the home menu i get a black screen after that laoding image, but then i unplug the device and i get the mount countdown thing and plug it back in and it works, is this due to the usb device itself or is it cios rev14

 

[OncleJulien]

I just got a brand new 1 TB MyBook for my birthday yesterday so i decided to use my old 250 gb WD MyBook for my Wii USB backups, however ive noticed some problems.

If i havent used the wii for a little while and i decide to play a game I click on one of my USB game channels on the Wii menu and nothing loads.

Other times when i try to go into USB Loader GX via the home menu i get a black screen after that laoding image, but then i unplug the device and i get the mount countdown thing and plug it back in and it works, is this due to the usb device itself or is it cios rev14

your drive is spinning down, going into a sleep mode - there are manufacturer-specific tools as well as third-party apps designed to stop this behavior.

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

Ok so how do i do it actually?

 

[OncleJulien]

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.as...=17&lang=en

that may work for you - i don't own that model, but i had a similar app for my seagate. you'll need to connect your drive to your pc, and then run the unzipped app - presumably it will find your drive (regardless of filesystem) and you'll direct it to inform the drive to stay stop spinning down, powersave, or however it refers to the process.

disco from pc, reattach to wii, profit.

 

[Santee]

I have a 500gb WD mybook and what you have to do is plug it out and plug it back after the wii turns on try and see if that fixes it.

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

I have a 500gb WD mybook and what you have to do is plug it out and plug it back after the wii turns on try and see if that fixes it.

Yeah well you see im already aware of that way to fix it, the fact is thats bloddy annoying to do, all i want to do is just pick up and play

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

Not allowing a USB drive to go into sleep mode can be dangerous. Is it possible to implent something into the cios that tells the usb device to wkae up and get ready for use

 

[dsfanatic5]

From what I've read, I was under the impression that either newer revisions of GX, or cIOS had fixed the spindown issue, but I guess that isn't the case for you. I've read about quite a few people with your problem, and they have to get up and plug the drive in every time they load. Like you, I find that process very annoying, and it kind of defeats the convenience of USB loaders. Most of these problems are tied to drives with external power supplies, or those which don't have software that can disable the standby setting.

I did a lot of research, and ended up buying a 500gb Seagate Freeagent Go, and I'm very happy with it. My biggest sell was that it included software to disable the standby, and it's powered by the Wii's USB. I can power on the Wii with the remote, and the drive mounts immediately and is ready to launch games via loader. If you do consider another drive, I strongly recommend this drive. Then you could always use your WD for movies or music, which is what I use my 120gb WD for.

 

[RAVMN]

I use the 1 TB My Book essencial edition 2.0
First 500 GB for WBFS, and the rest, for data.
And i had no problem

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

I cant afford anew usb drive right now so im stuck with it sadly

 

[the Badger]

I have a 250GB My Book connected to the wii and had the same problem with spindown after upgrading to 4.1u from 3.2u. I installed cIOS rev14 and started to use configurable usb loader at the same time. Not sure which fixed the problem but it is working perfectly.

 

[Blue-K]

I use the 1 TB My Book essencial edition 2.0
First 500 GB for WBFS, and the rest, for data.
And i had no problem

+1

I have also a WD MyBook 1TB. 150GB Fat32 for Data, the rest is WBFS for games. No problems, worked out of the Box. Maybe you should switch the HDs

?

 

[Skizzo]

Not allowing a USB drive to go into sleep mode can be dangerous.

How so? And if so, why on earth would the drive manufacturers offer software to do exactly that?

 

[Dr. Clipper]

Not allowing a USB drive to go into sleep mode can be dangerous.

How so? And if so, why on earth would the drive manufacturers offer software to do exactly that?

It lowers the lifetime of the mechanical components within the drive. It also wastes electricity. And I believe most of the apps that do provide the option to disable spindown also give you warnings when you do try to disable it.

 

[Skizzo]

Not allowing a USB drive to go into sleep mode can be dangerous.

How so? And if so, why on earth would the drive manufacturers offer software to do exactly that?

It lowers the lifetime of the mechanical components within the drive. It also wastes electricity. And I believe most of the apps that do provide the option to disable spindown also give you warnings when you do try to disable it.

Sorry, but this just isn't making sense to me. If something is 'moving' in the drive, i.e. mechanical, as opposed to solid state, how can the drive go to 'sleep' to begin with? Certainly the drive isn't just moving for the hell of it? I know about the electricity bit, and I thought that was the entire reason for the sleep mode. And even if you were correct about lowering the lifetime of the mechanical components, I would hardly call that 'dangerous'.

 

[scrappy]

Harddrives are not build to work forever, they are just build to statiscally last little longer than warranty time.
Drive spindle motors and gimbles are the bound to fail through usage, sleep mode powers down the spindle motor after parking the r/w heads, it is saving energy and cools down the drive.
Manufacturers can use cheaper components if they lower the uptime of the drives with the firmware.
Using an "green" or "eco" labelled drive spinning 24/7 eg. in server use kills >50% of the drives within 3 months ( hence such things as server drives exist) .

Disabling sleepmode is not dangerous, but will shorten the lifetime of your drive for shure .
Every drive is bound to fail at some point, simply buy a new one and have your backup ready.

 

[Skizzo]

Yes, I'm familiar with MTBF. Of course, I do believe there are many devices which have a longer lifespan if left on continuously as oppsed to starting and stopping them all the time. Some have suggested drive spindle motors fit into that category, but I don't know enough about that to say one way or another. I don't think the manufacturers created their 'green' drives because it's better for the drives. It's better for their bottom line and it's the PC thing to do these days.

 

[Dr. Clipper]

I'll agree there's a good chance that starting and stopping frequently could cause more damage than letting it run constantly. However, the problem is that it doesn't start and stop that frequently when you don't disable spindown. The actual times where the drive spins down are rare. You have to have had a good five minutes of game where everything's been loaded out of cache rather than from the drive. Consequently, if you have disabled spindown and leave your drive on overnight, that is a lot more constant spinning that it would have done otherwise.

If you have disabled spindown and want to maximise the lifetie of your drive, you should ensure that you switch the drive off when you switch off the Wii. That way it isn't going to continue running for hours when it doesn't need to. Alternatively, instead of disabling it, set it to a longer timeout (e.g., 1 hour).

 

[EnigmaXtreme]

The only problem im having is that my usb drive dosent start when the wii does

 

[Skizzo]

I'll agree there's a good chance that starting and stopping frequently could cause more damage than letting it run constantly. However, the problem is that it doesn't start and stop that frequently when you don't disable spindown. The actual times where the drive spins down are rare. You have to have had a good five minutes of game where everything's been loaded out of cache rather than from the drive. Consequently, if you have disabled spindown and leave your drive on overnight, that is a lot more constant spinning that it would have done otherwise.

If you have disabled spindown and want to maximise the lifetie of your drive, you should ensure that you switch the drive off when you switch off the Wii. That way it isn't going to continue running for hours when it doesn't need to. Alternatively, instead of disabling it, set it to a longer timeout (e.g., 1 hour).

Thanks for the info. You might have just convinced me to actually install the SmartWare that came on the drive after I make sure it isn't a resource hog.