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Thread: Read this thread if you own a Western Digital "Green" HDD.

  1. #16
    Moderator anon's Avatar
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    I searched the non-numeric part of your serial number in DuckDuckGo. It led me to a Russian site where someone posted a SMART log of a Caviar disk with the same S/N prefix, model string included. I searched the latter, and found the drive's sale name on eBay, as well as a forum thread which confirmed your particular model is affected by this.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    yoco (19.11.13)

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    Do I have to use all 3 ways or I can choose?
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    That depends on your disk. I have a WD3200BPVT-22JJ5T0 and had to disable Idle3 and run the APM tool under Windows.

    You might need a bootable DOS disk with USB support to run WDIDLE3. If you have a recent copy of Hiren's Boot CD, I think it already includes both of those things.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    I found this on my drive Hirens.BootCD.15.1. Is this good? What do I need to do? Did your method work for you?
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  6. #20
    Moderator anon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yoco View Post
    I found this on my drive Hirens.BootCD.15.1. Is this good? What do I need to do?
    Boot from the CD. Select "DOS Tools", then "Hard Disk Tools", then "WDIDLE3 1.05". Wait for it to load, then type WDIDLE3.EXE /D and press Enter. It should tell you if the timeout was disabled or something went wrong.

    Did your method work for you?
    Of course Only 340 head parkings since I started this thread. Note that I had to disable APM under Windows in addition to the method above, so if you want to be 100% sure, download the quietHDD program (link is in the first page) and follow the instructions.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    yoco (20.11.13)

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    I found new version, Hiren.s.Boot.CD.15.2.Rebuild. This one is also good, right?

    How do you know you only had 340 "parkings"?
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  9. #22
    Moderator anon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yoco View Post
    I found new version, Hiren.s.Boot.CD.15.2.Rebuild. This one is also good, right?
    If it includes the usual DOS tools (which I'm sure it does), then yes.

    How do you know you only had 340 "parkings"?
    Comparing the value of my drive's Load Cycle Count attribute (this is shown in any program that can display SMART attributes, like Defraggler) when I wrote the first post vs. what it is now
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    yoco (21.11.13)

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    I'm gonna try this as soon as I can.
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    Revisiting this thread too, to post new information.

    It seems Toshiba 2.5" disks also have this "feature". Although it is not as aggressive as Western Digital's nor does it cause lags, I don't want to think my disk is actively wearing itself out every time I use my computer.

    The 1 TB external disk I got as a present last year and the one in my new laptop are both of that same brand. Setting the APM value to 255 doesn't work on these, it resets itself back to 127. You have to set it to 254 instead. To accomplish this, use the hdparm fork mentioned in the first post for internal drives, and HDDScan 3.x for external ones.

    In the latter case, an additional measure must be taken. The USB-to-SATA adapter seems to do power management as well, so you need to write something to disk regularly to keep it active. Drop the following batch file on its root and keep it running as long as it's plugged in:

    Code:
    @echo off
    title Prevent drive %cd% from going to sleep
    color 0e
    rem echo ( Current path is %cd% )
    :init
    echo.
    echo ( Writing data to disk... )
    echo.
    echo %time%>NoSleep.dat&more<NoSleep.dat
    timeout /t 60 /nobreak
    rem Note: timeout only works on Windows Server 2003 and above
    goto init
    Somewhat ugly, but it works.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    ozymandis (06.05.15)

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    Quote Originally Posted by anon View Post
    Revisiting this thread too, to post new information.

    It seems Toshiba 2.5" disks also have this "feature". Although it is not as aggressive as Western Digital's nor does it cause lags, I don't want to think my disk is actively wearing itself out every time I use my computer.

    The 1 TB external disk I got as a present last year and the one in my new laptop are both of that same brand. Setting the APM value to 255 doesn't work on these, it resets itself back to 127. You have to set it to 254 instead. To accomplish this, use the hdparm fork mentioned in the first post for internal drives, and HDDScan 3.x for external ones.

    In the latter case, an additional measure must be taken. The USB-to-SATA adapter seems to do power management as well, so you need to write something to disk regularly to keep it active. Drop the following batch file on its root and keep it running as long as it's plugged in:


    Somewhat ugly, but it works.
    Which Toshiba 2.5 hdd are affected by this anyway to find out cause I have a toshiba external HDD and after my snafu with my laptop HDD I don't want an encore
    Last edited by ozymandis; 06.05.15 at 17:44.
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    That's my model. Other ones in the Canvio line are also affected, from what I've read.

    Using any program that can display SMART data (like Defraggler) is a quick way to find out. Plug the disk in, write down what the "Load/Unload Cycle Count" attribute is, wait a minute, copy a file, immediately check the attribute again, redo this a few times. If the amount of cycles went upward every time, you have a problem.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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  16. #27
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    Up goes this, because it remains a problem for most disks of all brands to this day. Here's a quick info dump.

    • https://sites.google.com/site/quiethdd/ - quietHDD. If you don't have too much time, this is the simplest and fastest solution. Install, run as administrator, configure it to disable APM and AAM and keep it open.
    • https://disablehddapm.blogspot.com/ - hdparm for Windows. A very old Cygwin port, but it still works. Install, delete its startup shortcut, then save the following code block as a .xml file with UTF-16 encoding and import it to your task scheduler (note the red comment).

    Code:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
    <Task version="1.2" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windows/2004/02/mit/task">
      <RegistrationInfo>
        <Date>2019-09-05T21:35:07.7749152</Date>
        <Author>redacted\redacted</Author>
        <Description>Keeps APM, AAM, standby timeout and Seagate power saving disabled on the first hard disk.</Description>
      </RegistrationInfo>
      <Triggers>
        <BootTrigger>
          <Enabled>true</Enabled>
        </BootTrigger>
        <EventTrigger>
          <Enabled>true</Enabled>
          <Subscription>&lt;QueryList&gt;&lt;Query Id="0" Path="System"&gt;&lt;Select Path="System"&gt;*[System[Provider[@Name='Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power'] and EventID=42]]&lt;/Select&gt;&lt;/Query&gt;&lt;/QueryList&gt;</Subscription>
          <Delay>PT5S</Delay>
        </EventTrigger>
      </Triggers>
      <Principals>
        <Principal id="Author">
          <UserId>S-1-5-18</UserId>
          <RunLevel>HighestAvailable</RunLevel>
        </Principal>
      </Principals>
      <Settings>
        <MultipleInstancesPolicy>IgnoreNew</MultipleInstancesPolicy>
        <DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>false</DisallowStartIfOnBatteries>
        <StopIfGoingOnBatteries>false</StopIfGoingOnBatteries>
        <AllowHardTerminate>true</AllowHardTerminate>
        <StartWhenAvailable>true</StartWhenAvailable>
        <RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>false</RunOnlyIfNetworkAvailable>
        <IdleSettings>
          <StopOnIdleEnd>true</StopOnIdleEnd>
          <RestartOnIdle>false</RestartOnIdle>
        </IdleSettings>
        <AllowStartOnDemand>true</AllowStartOnDemand>
        <Enabled>true</Enabled>
        <Hidden>false</Hidden>
        <RunOnlyIfIdle>false</RunOnlyIfIdle>
        <WakeToRun>false</WakeToRun>
        <ExecutionTimeLimit>PT0S</ExecutionTimeLimit>
        <Priority>7</Priority>
        <RestartOnFailure>
          <Interval>PT1M</Interval>
          <Count>10</Count>
        </RestartOnFailure>
      </Settings>
      <Actions Context="Author">
        <Exec>
          <!-- Edit the path if you're not on x64 or have installed hdparm somewhere else -->
          <Command>"C:\Program Files (x86)\hdparm\hdparm.exe"</Command>
          <Arguments>-B 255 -M 254 -S 0 -Z sda</Arguments>
        </Exec>
      </Actions>
    </Task>
    Registry tweaks also exist, but are driver-dependent and only apply on startup (when the driver is initialized) in any case. For Linux, the equivalents are putting hdparm on /etc/rc.local and/or creating a udev rule; check your distro's documentation for more details.

    Note that disks do not necessarily obey the "disable APM completely" command sent by hdparm, CrystalDiskInfo and others. You'll have to set APM to 254 in that case. Here's a table explaining all the possible values.

    Code:
    Advanced Power Management (APM)
    *Count*		*Level*
    00h 		Reserved
    01h 		Minimum power consumption with Standby
    02h-7Fh 	Intermediate power management levels with Standby
    80h 		Minimum power consumption without Standby
    81h-FDh 	Intermediate power management levels without Standby
    FEh 		Maximum performance
    FFh 		Reserved
    
    Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM)
    *Count*		*Level*
    00h 		Vendor Specific
    01h 		Retired
    80h 		Minimum acoustic emanation level
    81h-FDh 	Intermediate acoustic management levels
    FEh 		Maximum performance
    FFh 		Reserved
    When a disk is idle, at least some of the following timers can run concurrently, and should one of them "win", the disk will spin down. Disable or bypass them all and you'll prevent this from happening.
    • OS idle timer - configurable through its power settings. Changes can be stored persistently.
    • APM spindown (for certain values as per above) - configurable with `hdparm -B', quietHDD, CrystalDiskInfo, HDDScan and many others. Changes are lost after a power cycle or ATA software reset.
    • ATA standby - configurable with `hdparm -S'. Changes can be stored persistently.
    • Enclosure idle timer (for externals) - very rarely configurable. Use a script or program that regularly writes to the disk to keep it active as a workaround (see post #24).
    • Idle3 (Western Digital only) - configurable with WDIDLE3 (DOS) or idle3ctl (Linux). Changes can be stored persistently.
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    yoco (06.02.23)

  18. #28
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    I tried QuietHDD. It's running in taskbar, how do I know it's disabled APM and AAM? Right clicking shows "disable system suspend" and "disable HDD APM now".
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  19. #29
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    I think the program's homepage explains that fairly well...
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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  20. #30
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    Windows 8.x and above added more aggressive power management for USB devices. If your external disk goes to sleep after applying all of the solutions I mentioned above, merge this to your registry and reconnect it. (Also worth doing for thumb drives if you notice them lagging more than they should or suddenly disappearing.)

    Code:
    REGEDIT4
    
    ; NOTE: replace the red text with the Device Instance Path for your
    ; disk's USB interface, exactly as shown if you open its details in the
    ; device manager, without any spaces or newlines
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_aaaa&PID_bbbb\cccccccc\Device Parameters]
    "DeviceSelectiveSuspended"=dword:00000000
    "EnableSelectiveSuspend"=dword:00000000
    "SelectiveSuspendEnabled"=hex:00
    "SelectiveSuspendSupported"=dword:00000000
    "EnhancedPowerManagementEnabled"=dword:00000000
    
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\USB\VID_aaaa&PID_bbbb\cccccccc\Device Parameters\WDF]
    "IdleInWorkingState"=dword:00000000
    
    ; NOTE: replace the red "aaaa" with the four-digit string following
    ; "VID_" in what you pasted above, then do the same with "bbbb" but use
    ; the "PID_" string instead
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\usbstor\aaaabbbb]
    "DeviceHackFlags"=dword:00000400
    "I just remembered something that happened a long time ago."
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    mammamia11 (13.08.23)

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