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Western Digital "My Book" - Questions



 
 
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  #11  
Old October 17th 06, 12:10 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Folkert Rienstra
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Posts: 1,297
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions

This subject has been discussed befo
"Need prog. to prevent hdd going into idle (such as a perdiodic access?)"

"bxf" wrote in message ups.com
bxf wrote:
bxf wrote:
Andreas Keppler wrote:
"bxf" wrote:


I've just done the above, and my dummy script is in fact an empty file
I've named Dummy Access.bat. The only unpleasant side-effect is the
flashing of the Command Prompt screen every time the task is executed.
There may be a way to prevent this, but I don't know of one yet.


It appears that if you give your empty file a VBS extension rather than
.BAT, there is no "flashing Command Prompt" screen.


It appears that executing an empty script, even if it resides on the
USB drive, does not prevent it from spinning down after a few minutes.
I assume Windows must be caching the script or something, hence
avoiding an actual access to the drive.

I'm going to create a script that will allocate and write to a file on
the drive ("M" in my case), and it looks like this:

Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, objUSBFile

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objUSBFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("M:\Dummy Access.txt", True)

objUSBFile.WriteLine("This is a dummy file")
objUSBFile.Close

Wscript.Quit

I'll create a Scheduled Task that will invoke this script every few
minutes, and I expect this should keep the drive active. I'll try it
tomorrow.

  #12  
Old October 17th 06, 12:44 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
bxf
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Posts: 18
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions

Folkert Rienstra wrote:
This subject has been discussed befo
"Need prog. to prevent hdd going into idle (such as a perdiodic access?)"


Ah, yes. Discussed to death, from what I see.

  #13  
Old October 19th 06, 01:16 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
bxf
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Posts: 18
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions


Well Andreas, the script I have above works in stopping the drive from
spinning down. You can just save it somewhere (change the "M" to the
appropriate drive letter) and set up a scheduled task to run it every
nine minutes.

WD emphatically says that there is no way to stop the spin-down
function. For this, and other info, you may want to go to the WD site
Support FAQ and do a search using the keywords SMART POWER - some
interesting stuff there, including instructions on how to open up the
MYBOOK case.

  #14  
Old October 21st 06, 07:16 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Folkert Rienstra
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Posts: 1,297
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions

"Andreas Keppler" wrote in message
"bxf" wrote:

My MYBOOK included WD Diagnostics software, which enables me
to view the SMART data on the WD drive

You might wanna tell babblebot I and babblebot II about it.
They repeatedly say that it can't be done.


Unfortunately, I can't take a screenshot of the output, but I assure
"them" that it works - unless the utility is pulling numbers out of the
air.

The utility is called "Western Digital Data Lifeguard for Windows -
DLGDIAG for Windows". I suspect (not sure) that anybody can down-
load it from the WD site.



Bill was right! Even if I couldn believe it! :-)

I tried several times to read the SMART-status of my "my book pro"
(USB2.0 and Firewire400) with a Firewire-Connection and it didnt work.


After that I searched a lot at google-groups and found a lot of postings
reporting that the IDE-Commands cant be sent through Firewire


That's not my impression from this group. That would apply to USB.

or some Controllers.


Likely the latter. I believe the Firewire interface has a better defined
software interface for the Firewire "Tailgate" ( 1394 to IDE bridge).
http://www.t13.org/project/d1248r4-1394-Tailgate.pdf

" 1 Scope
This standard specifies the protocol for passing ATA and ATAPI
commands over the 1394 bus. It provides a common attachment
interface for systems manufacturers, system integrators, soft-
ware suppliers, and suppliers of intelligent storage devices. "

I'm not aware of any similar specification for an USB bus tailgate.


Now I connected my "mybook" with USB1.1 (dont have USB 2.0) and it
works:

http://i11.tinypic.com/2hfo1s7.gif


With a firewire-Connection to my mybook the Mybook didnt appear at
"physical devices" and I couldnt scan it.

But if I connect the mybook after booting it appears, even if the
SMART-Mode cant be read at once.

http://i11.tinypic.com/2yvus02.gif

But I can start a Smart-Scan with a pleasing result :-)

http://i11.tinypic.com/44unamo.gif


Unfortunately it says "SMART Status: Not Available"



Andy

  #15  
Old October 22nd 06, 11:33 AM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
Mike Redrobe
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Posts: 16
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions


"Andreas Keppler" wrote
"bxf" wrote:
-------------
Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, objUSBFile

[etc]

wow! massively over engineered script when the
following *single line* directly in scheduled tasks
"run box" would do the same:

echo "This is a dummy file" G:\dummyfile.txt

(or put the same line in a nostandby.bat file)

--
Mike


  #16  
Old October 22nd 06, 04:35 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
bxf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions

Andreas Keppler wrote:
"bxf" wrote:

-------------
Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, objUSBFile

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objUSBFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("M:\Dummy Access.txt", True)

objUSBFile.WriteLine("This is a dummy file")
objUSBFile.Close

Wscript.Quit
----------------

I'll create a Scheduled Task that will invoke this script every few
minutes, and I expect this should keep the drive active. I'll try it
tomorrow.



This script doesnt run here even if I change your drive "M" to "G".
(my mybook is "G")


I saved the script as "nostandby.vbs" and created a scheduled Task.

Every time XP starts the script, XP says that it couldnt execute the
script cause of entering the wrong password or Username!
(but the password I used is the same I need for logging into XP!)

If I dont provide a password and start the script XP complains about
not using a password in the scheduled task! :-)


I think I've seen some fix or update related to this - can't recall
where. You'll have to search yourself.

Maybe it was wrong that I used the extension .vbs!


vbs is correct.

I dont know, I am not a programmer! :-)

I tried with no extension but the problem remains the same!

Hope you can help me! :-)

Thanks a lot!


Andy


  #17  
Old October 22nd 06, 04:47 PM posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage
bxf
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18
Default Western Digital "My Book" - Questions

Believe it or not, I'm an excellent technical programmer :-) - been
doing it for over 35 years, over 25 of them as a freelancing
contractor.

Problem is, it's all been on mainframes, so when I want to do something
on a PC, I'm limited. In this case, my logic says that I want to write
a record to a file, so let me find examples of how this is done. And
you see the results. At least it works.

Having knowledge of the features of a given language always helps, but
one only picks up these things through experience. In fact, I've told
myself several times that I should make an effort to learn, and in the
past I've always found that the best way for me to learn is to write
something simple, then repeatedly expand on it, often using some
additional features of the language. Unfortunatelty, I can't think of
anything to write that would be useful enough to keep me motivated.

Bill

Mike Redrobe wrote:
"Andreas Keppler" wrote
"bxf" wrote:
-------------
Option Explicit

Dim objFSO, objUSBFile

[etc]

wow! massively over engineered script when the
following *single line* directly in scheduled tasks
"run box" would do the same:

echo "This is a dummy file" G:\dummyfile.txt

(or put the same line in a nostandby.bat file)

--
Mike


 




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