Hacking Stopping hard drives from going to sleep

[icebrg5]

I know this question has been asked before when the loaders first came out but seeing how much progress has been made with them over the last few months i thought maybe this is possible now.

Some hard drives have issues with the sleep and spin down settings.

For most drives there is manufacturers software that will let you turn the settings off completely,but there are some drives that do not have software to disable these settings.

*I've tried all different manufactures softwares and even HDparm and SDparm and none work.The settings are lost after a power cycle.

What i am asking is there a way to make the usb loaders either read or write to the drive say every 15 seconds while
its still loading games that way the drive will never fall asleep or spindown.

I found a program for the PC that can do it but i was wondering if it can be applied to maybe work on the wii.

http://jakajaksic.com/silentdrive/

 

[giantpune]

it can be done easily. but i think that it would be a very dumb idea to make it a standard feature. it will have to be the cIOS or echi module that does this, not the loader. and it will cause a whole bunch of wear and tear on everybody's drives because of 1 or 2 peoples' crappy sale rack HDD. you would be better off compiling your own echi module that does reads every 15 seconds or whatever it is you need.

 

[davidsl_128]

That seems too complex

You should try using Herme's cIOS to load from USB (download here) instead. Load the installer and choose to install IOS222 as 38 merged with 37 (make sure you don't have GC controllers/memory cards plugged), then in your USB loader choose to load your games with IOS 222 instead of IOS 249. My HDD doesn't have special software either (or at least I couldn't find it) but ever since I installed Herme's cIOS everything works great

 

[icebrg5]

Well i just used Herme's cios 222.I'm not sure what version of it im actually running because its been awhile since i installed it,but it seems to be working great.I've been playing mario kart with it and i can actually finish a grand prix race without it locking up.

I've tested it with every cios by waninkoko and it freezes with every one of them usually on the first race of the grand prix at the start of the 2nd lap.


It did freeze a few times however after selecting all my options(character,car,auto/manual race) and then selecting the course it would freeze trying to load the course.

I've had that happen with other hard drives though that had 0 spindown issues so i don't think that's what caused it here.

I'm currently doing the "pause" test with it right now.
Started a grand prix race of mario kart did 1 1/2 laps of the first race and then paused the game.
I'm gonna try to continue the game after about 20 minutes of it just sitting and see what happens.

EDIT: Finished the races just fine after letting the game sit paused for 25 minutes.

I was using Wiiflow R25 V222 to run the game.Worked flawlessly except for the few times it froze right before the start of the first race but like I've said that issue has come up before on other hard drives that did not have spin down issues.It could just be a bad rip of the game who knows.

Also out of all of the cios I tested from waninkoko R15 was by far the worst.It took 4 tries before it would actually load the game properly and when it did a bunch of graphics were missing from the game.On the screen where you select the kart/bike you want to use there where no pictures at all just question marks.It still let me select one though and on the next screen where you pick the race cup you want there were no animations at all for any of the tracks and then after the race started it froze in the exact same spot it has for every other cios by waninkoko.

On my main hard drive i use i have CiosRev15 and i use Wiiflow R25 249 and all games work just fine(even mario kart),but it has the spin down disabled completely.

 

[DrSaturn]

I tried this method with Customizable USB loader but my Western Digital HD still spins down after 10 min. WD says theres no way to disable this on most of their HDs.

Anyone got any other ideas how to work around this?

 

[OncleJulien]

I tried this method with Customizable USB loader...
link please.

QUOTE(DrSaturn @ Dec 14 2009, 04:48 PM) WD says theres no way to disable this on most of their HDs.

seems dubious, what model?

 

[DrSaturn]

That seems too complex

You should try using Herme's cIOS to load from USB (download here) instead. Load the installer and choose to install IOS222 as 38 merged with 37 (make sure you don't have GC controllers/memory cards plugged), then in your USB loader choose to load your games with IOS 222 instead of IOS 249. My HDD doesn't have special software either (or at least I couldn't find it) but ever since I installed Herme's cIOS everything works great

This is the method to which I'm referring. Just using Herme's cIOS 222.

Here's the WD faq that says there's no option

 

[OncleJulien]

Here's the WD faq that says there's no option
WD SupportThis is a permanent feature of most of our external hard drives and cannot be disabled.

i'll be polite, because i know you require the formalities:

can i please know what your hard drive model is? elements and mybooks have software which stops spindown.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

I have two Elements. Where would one find this special software. ive been looking for it everywhere.

 

[OncleJulien]

I have two Elements. Where would one find this special software. ive been looking for it everywhere.

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.as...id=17?=en

 

[giantpune]

this is most likely a "feature" of the SATA->USB doohicky inside the enclosure. every external driver is really just an internal drive (not made by WD) wrapped in a enclosure and marked up $20. all my WD drives were really seagate 3.5 drives. just get another enclosure or SATA->USB converter and you wont have to mess with the sleep shit.

 

[DrSaturn]

this is most likely a "feature" of the SATA->USB doohicky inside the enclosure. every external driver is really just an internal drive (not made by WD) wrapped in a enclosure and marked up $20. all my WD drives were really seagate 3.5 drives. just get another enclosure or SATA->USB converter and you wont have to mess with the sleep shit.

Well, even if this theoretically could work If I'm gonna put some money into the problem I'm gonna get a new HD, mine is ancient. I'm sure thats a good chunk of the problem.

Here's the WD faq that says there's no option
WD Support

This is a permanent feature of most of our external hard drives and cannot be disabled.

i'll be polite, because i know you require the formalities:

can i please know what your hard drive model is? elements and mybooks have software which stops spindown.

See? Aren't manners fun? You've become quite the gentleman in the course of my last few posts. This is my HD, a Legacy 1200b015. I downloaded the stop and spindown utility but, as far as I can tell, that is just a application allowing you to manually spindown your drive. Maybe in your infinite wisdom and experience you know something I don't, but I don't see a way to use this application to disable spindown. According to the faq I linked to above from WD themselves the software that can disable this function is called "WD SmartWare" which is only available on "My Book" and "My Passport" models.

Have you personally, or do you know some who has, used any of the downloads on the elements page you linked to as a method of disabling spindown on a Western Digital Hard Drive?

 

[MelodieOctavia]

OncleJulien, I have reviewed that software, and basically all it is, is a utility to manually spindown or stop the drive "to ensure safe removal" from the computer.

 

[OncleJulien]

OncleJulien, I have reviewed that software, and basically all it is, is a utility to manually spindown or stop the drive "to ensure safe removal" from the computer.

although i use seagate drives, and they provide their own software to disable sleep mode, some folks have had success with this app:

http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/man/man8/hdparm.8.html