WD7500BPVT spin down time tool success [ Edited ]

[w_m0zart]

I wanted to share with other users my experience to successfully modify the for me annoying spin down time of my WD7500BPVT hard disk.

The WD7500BPVT is a 2.5" 750GB hard disk which I used in an onnto enclosure (With Firewire 400/800 and USB) as external backup for my Mac. After putting the hard disk in the enclosure, connecting it to my mac, I noticed that the hard disk would always spin down after about 8 seconds of inactivity. After this, accessing the hard disk takes about 3 seconds, because it needs to wake up from the spin down. I found this behavior annoying and searched the internet if this could be configured. Initially I found references to the wdidle3 tool. Which is here:

  * >>>  WDidle3 <<<

This tool requires Dos. So, I copied it to a floppy disk, booted my PC from a Dos diskette, changed the diskette then to the floppy disk with WDidle3 on it and tried the tool with the /D option. The tool reported it was successfully disabled. Please note that I removed the hard disk from my enclosure, connected it directly to the Sata interface on the motherboard, while having all other disks disconnected.

Unfortunately, despite the successful message, it was not such a success. The hard drive would still spin down after 8 seconds.

So I continued searching the internet and found this long thread:

  * >>> Thread at WDC with spin down problems <<<

with reference to another tool WDIdleDisable and the tool CrystalDiskInfo:

  * >>> WdIdleDisable V6 <<<

  * >>> CrystalDiskInfo <<<

I started windows XP, with the WD7500BPVT hard disk connected to another Sata port. When I started the WDIdleDisable tool, it reported 'No drives found' and 'Try running with administrative rights'. The hard disk was connected and I was running with administrative rights.

After this I reasoned that the tool expects that the drive is in an enclosure.  So I tried then connecting the hard disk via the enclosure I had, via USB.

This time the tool reported correctly the model (WDC WD7500BPVT-80HXZT1), serial number [Deleted] and firmware: 01.01A01. Under that text was shown "Updating this drive" and "Drive has been successfully updated".

This time it was a genuine success! The hard drive stayed on.

Then I used theCrystalDiskInfo to verify if the settings are correct and whether I should modify some power settings. Both the Automatic Acoustic Management and the Automatic Power Management I set to maximum.

So if the update doesn't work when the hard disk is connected directly to a Sata port on the motherboard, it may be required to update the hard drive via an usb enclosure instead.

I hope this may help others with this drive

A screenshot of the update:

[Awopero]

This is really good to know, I have seen several people asking that question.

[Vadir]

Really helpful information.  You may email WD Support to see if thsi can be included in their FAQ.

[jurynet]

No results to me, though i've got the same drive and i've followed the same steps. it keeps saying: "No drives found"...

[ShotRussian]

No luck with this tool, trying to disable the aggressive spindown timer of a 1TB Scorpio Blue (WD10JPVT-22A1YT0, Firmware 01.01A01, in an external enclosure). The hard drive is indeed detected by this wdidledisablev6 tool, which soon after reports that it's not applicable to this model.

Come on, Western Digital, show us that you still have some techie guys in-house... Shouldn't be too hard to implement a permanent fix, I guess it's probably a matter of changing a few bits at the right place...