Hacking Tool to turn off Advanced Power Management Feature for non-USB hard dr

[hdhacker]

I ordered a Western Digital Passport Essentials USB hard drive for my Wii. I haven't received it yet, so I have no idea if its APM feature will cause me grief. Other hard drive manufacturers like Seagate and Maxtor have tools that allow you to disable the APM feature. I haven't found one for Western Digital yet.

BTW, has anyone using a Western Digital Passport Essentials drive experienced problems with the spin-down on your Wii?

However, I have found a command line utility that can help called hdparam. You can download the Windows version here:

http://hdparm-win32.dyndns.org/hdparm/

WARNING! - This tool is not for noobs! You can seriously fuck up your hard drive. If your manufacturer provides a utility, use it instead! This is only to be used as a last resort. It's command line (non-gui) and the switches are case sensitive. Mix them up and you are dead!

There are two possible switches that might work: "-S 0" or "-B 255"

The "-S" switch sets the standby (spindown) timeout for the drive. A timeout of 0 should disable the feature. The "-b" switch sets the Advanced Power Management feature, if the drive supports it. A value of 255 should disable the feature. Note: there's also a special switch for Seagate drives: "-Z"

Make sure to test if these settings survive a complete power down/restart. If not, you may need to add the "-K 1" switch to tell the drive to remember the settings.

Remember, this won't work with a USB drive. You would need to remove the internal hard drive from the enclosure and connect it directly to your PC before you could even attempt using this tool. For those of you who are putting together your own external solution, this tool could be a lifesaver.

 

[Maurice10]

This thread scares me with its big and bold letters and symbols.

 

[evvil]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

 

[hdhacker]

BTW, here's the link to the utility for Maxtor USB drives:

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/d...ads/onetouch_4/

And here's the "Wii USB Devices Compatibility List"

http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/index.php/USB...patibility_List

The WDC Passport Essentials looks like a winner, but I still wonder if they tested it for spindown problems?

 

[73ARM3]

Im using a newly bought WD passport essential 250GB, as my freecom mobile classic (fujitsu hdd inside) 250GB wouldnt even get recognised with USB loader..I have played a few games so far with no issues at all....and all games transfer within 3 mins or so,,(dump with imgburn and transfer with WBFS Gui Rev7 by Maschell)

So far...no issues at all with WD passport essential 250GB

(left game alone ...celebrity sports showdown USA on my PAL wii for 15 mins...all that happened was my controller lost connection..pressed A ..game resumed and controller recallibrated)

 

[Lomax]

The WDC Passport Essentials looks like a winner, but I still wonder if they tested it for spindown problems?

I went with the Passport Essentials, based on the Compatibility list. Nothing but lockups and freezes. Avoid. The noobs adding them to the list are not testing them properly. I returned mine for a Seagate FreeAgent GO, and used the Maxtor tool to turn off the spindown.

 

[jservs7]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

 

[evvil]

The WDC Passport Essentials looks like a winner, but I still wonder if they tested it for spindown problems?

How would you test for spin down problems? let me know and I'll give it a try and let you know the outcome. BTW it really is a nice little drive, small quiet runs cool and looks good, a 500 in white would be sick! Also I have 41 games loaded and only using 83GB so far

 

[icebrg5]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

What drive did you get at staples for $60?
I looked on staples.com and couldnt fidn any WD within that price range.Was it a previous deal?
I have a $25 off $75 coupon that i would love to use on this.

 

[jservs7]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

What drive did you get at staples for $60?
I looked on staples.com and couldnt fidn any WD within that price range.Was it a previous deal?
I have a $25 off $75 coupon that i would love to use on this.

It was this one and yes, it was a deal at the time:
http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_...es_10051_SEARCH

I got it about a week ago with a $25 off $75 coupon as well.

 

[icebrg5]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

I looked on staples.com and couldnt fidn any WD within that price range.Was it a previous deal?
I have a $25 off $75 coupon that i would love to use on this.

It was this one and yes, it was a deal at the time:
http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_...es_10051_SEARCH

I got it about a week ago with a $25 off $75 coupon as well.

Thanks for the info.To bad my coupon expires in 2 days and staples dont have shit for deals.
What drive did you get at staples for $60?

 

[evvil]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

What drive did you get at staples for $60?
I looked on staples.com and couldnt fidn any WD within that price range.Was it a previous deal?
I have a $25 off $75 coupon that i would love to use on this.

It was this one and yes, it was a deal at the time:
http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_...es_10051_SEARCH

I got it about a week ago with a $25 off $75 coupon as well.

That's not the drive I have, it's this one. (I see why you want to change the enclosure of that one)

I bought it on sale last week for 99$ from best buy, they have the same one but a 320GB for 89$ this week.

 

[jservs7]

Im using a 400GB Western Digital Passport Essentials and it works perfect right out of the box, formatted with the usb loader just fine, runs every game iv put on it fast and smooth (more then 40 now). I'v loaded games through the wii and wbfs_win and all run perfect. I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Bought my drive the day after the loader came out from BB for 99$. I'm not sure you have to worry about spin down as the drive gets accessed quite often, I also left Tatsunoko vs Capcom paused while running on the loader for more then an hour, unpaused and it ran instantly no lag at all. Feel free to ask anything else and I'll do my best to answer.

I have the same one and it works great! Less than $60 shipped for me at Staples.

I am replacing the enclosure for a cooler, aluminum one. (Even though it's a 2.5 and does not get that hot at all)

What drive did you get at staples for $60?
I looked on staples.com and couldnt fidn any WD within that price range.Was it a previous deal?
I have a $25 off $75 coupon that i would love to use on this.

It was this one and yes, it was a deal at the time:
http://www.staples.com/office/supplies/p1_...es_10051_SEARCH

I got it about a week ago with a $25 off $75 coupon as well.

That's not the drive I have, it's this one. (I see why you want to change the enclosure of that one)

Western-Digital-400GB-My-Passport

I bought it on sale last week for 99$ from best buy, they have the same one but a 320GB for 89$ this week.

Ah ok. So besides the casing, 2 extra years of warranty, and software thats installed with the Passport, its the same drive.

 

[hdhacker]

I honestly would try it first before you mess with anything like that as I have had zero issues with mine so far.

Well, you can't use the hdparm utility on the drive without taking it out of the enclosure. Unless WD releases a utility, there's not much you can do without voiding your warranty. Thankfully, you haven't had any issues so far, so this may be a moot point.

Seagate and Maxtor external drives used to have disconnection issues in Linux. That's why they have utilities to turn that feature off. I tried googling for similar issues with Western Digital (newer) drives and I don't see it come up much. Maybe they have a better spin-down method? Maybe they're caching data better so the spin-up time isn't a factor?

Perhaps in the next release of the loader, there can be an option to "ping" the USB drive to keep it awake. That's the solution some people came up with for Linux.

QUOTE(Lomax @ Apr 5 2009, 09:50 PM) I went with the Passport Essentials, based on the Compatibility list. Nothing but lockups and freezes. Avoid. The noobs adding them to the list are not testing them properly. I returned mine for a Seagate FreeAgent GO, and used the Maxtor tool to turn off the spindown.

Ah, this is very interesting. Did you make sure you were using the correct USB port? Using the wrong one can cause lockups and freezes, too.

Also, is there any chance you're using an older beta of IOS222? I believe the latest is beta 3 (and I have no idea how to tell which one is installed).

 

[evvil]

Ah ok. So besides the casing and 2 extra years of warranty, and software thats installed with the Passport, its the same drive.

I'm sure the drive is exactly the same, the usb/sata controller of the enclosure may differ a bit, I really don't know any details on that though. But hell for 60$ shipped you really can't go wrong! I was just impatient and wanted to try it out right away so that was the best deal I could find around my place. I really wanted the 500GB in arctic white but 149$ was more then I was willing to spend.

 

[hdhacker]

NewEgg has the best price on the 500GB for $109 including shipping.

 

[twig123]

I have a WD 80GB IDE drive (WD800JB) in an external enclosure. I tested this program (after removing the drive and connecting it direct to IDE in my computer) and it appears that I was able to Disable the Standby feature, however, APM and Keep settings failed. Below is the output of me running these hdparm commands:

C:\Program Files\hdparm\bin>hdparm -S 0 hdb
hdb:
setting standby to 0 (off)
================
C:\Program Files\hdparm\bin>hdparm -B 255 hdb
hdb:
setting Advanced Power Management level to disabled
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error
================
C:\Program Files\hdparm\bin>hdparm -K 1 hdb
hdb:
setting drive keep features to 1 (on)
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(keepsettings) failed: Input/output error

I just tested by playing Geometry Wars for a while, however, the game(s) still freeze/black screen/horrible screeching after ~25min. Anyone have any additional incite on this issue/error with hdparm?

 

[JussiPik]

i just bought WD 160 GB passport essential and it works like a charm, no spindown problems what so ever.
tested with every program possible.