Hacking Safe Shut Down for HDs?

[metroid4life14]

Hey everyone, I have a quick question. A few days ago, I got a toshiba drive for my wii and hooked it up via USBloader. Everything works fine, except for one thing that's been bugging me. If I hit the power button in the middle of playing a game, my drive makes a whirring/clicking noise as it shuts down. Tested a few times, and it's not affecting performance, but I'm afraid that I'm damaging my drive in a way equivalent to ripping out a usb flash drive without doing the "safely remove hard drive" function in windows.

It seems like everything's ok if I exit to sysmenu and the use the shut down function in USBloader GX... so a few questions:

1) Is the sound even that big of a deal?
2) Is there a way to safely shut down a hard drive connected to the wii?
3) If the answer to both of the above is yes, then is there an easy way of doing so (preferable easier than having to go into usbloader again to hit the shut down button)

 

[metroid4life14]

1) I bought a tosh drive because of it's good reputation. It's the highest rated drive on amazon.
2) The drive works fine on my computer, no issues
3) It only happens on my wii if I shut the game down right in the middle of playing a game. The sound sounds like that of the head coming to a stop, but louder than it normally sounds.

 

[longtom1]

why not just quit the game like a normal game press home and go to wii menu and see if the hard drive does the same thing
if it doesn't then it's the way your quitting the game is giving your hard drive a hard time

 

[crwys]

The only time i unplug my usb from the wii is when im at the home menu or homebrew channel. Other than that i don't risk it. I have WD external have drives, they are amazing, toshiba fails =P

 

[metroid4life14]

my drive:
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Portable-Ext...9944&sr=8-2

comparable wd drive:
http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Pass...0023&sr=1-8

they're exactly the same except mine is a newer model and has a faster read/write speed. Btw, I tried the "exit to sysmenu" method and that didn't work either. The only way to avoid the noise is to shut down via usbloadergx

 

[tooquick]

I have a WD Elements and the light flashes when it is loading and the light stays on when its on and not plugged in. When I quit to the menu it doesnt flash, so i figure it is not being used. So before I turn it off, I always go to the home menu.

 

[masamunecyrus]

I have a WD My Passport that, even after "Safely Removing" in Windows, continues to stay on and spin until I physically unplug it from my computer. There is a light that blinks in the back showing IO read/write, but that light stops blinking and the drive unmounts from Windows after Safely Removing. It seems as though it was designed to just be unplugged while spinning, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Really, I wouldn't worry about unplugging anything so long as you're positive the drive is only being READ from. Unplugging mid-write will cause problems. Also, make sure that your hdd doesn't get bumped around while it's spinning. I carefully picked mine up once while it was spinning to set it on something and it made a horrible noise. Nothing bad seems to have come of that, though...

 

[metroid4life14]

Thanks for all the replies, but I think masamunecyrus answered my question provided that he is correct. After a few more tests I'm pretty sure that the noise is just of the head stopping to spin. My acomdata 1tb makes a noise upon shutdown as well, although not as loud as this drive.

Either way, seems like nobody else has messed up their drives by not "safely removing" with the wii, so I'm not going to stress over it. My only worry before was that shutting down suddenly was the equivalent of a simulated power surge and would wear out my drive moreso than normal usage, but it doesn't seem like that's an issue from your responses.

Oh, and foez, I've heard some horrendous things about the auto-mounting emulated drives of newer WD models. One of the chief reasons why I decided to stick w/ the toshiba.