A question about WD passport

[mahmood]

Hello,
I have a WD passport 250GB. The manual says that after "safley removing" the HD via USB port, the LED should be turned off.

When I "safely remove" the drive not only the LED is still ON, I can feel and hear that the drive is actually spinning. So What should I do? Shall I gently remove the drive regardless of the ON LED and spinning drive?

Thanks,

 

[xekutr]

If I understand it correctly, doesn't the Safely remove just tell the OS to stop using the drive? In which case the drive would still be receiving power via the USB, but no data would be being transferred so there would be no chance for anything to be corrupted. Atleast this is my understanding of the way it works, I personally never use the feature, and have never had anything go wrong for me

 

[mahmood]

You mean that you gently disconnect the device?

I wonder if the drive is spinning, by disconnecting it from mother bord will it be harmed?

 

[jikman]

Does anybody know of a solution to this problem with Vista and safely removing USB devices as far as powerdown goes? Vista says it's OK to remove but LED light stays lit and with USB drives they remain spinning. With XP this does not occur.

 

[mahmood]

The drive stops spinning after 15 minutes of inactivity. but if you can not wait for that you can remove the WD and then put the computer to sleep, then the drive is forced to turn off. Then you can unplug it and wake the computer up!!!

Although it is not a good solution but it can help... I noticed also that SDPARM (http://sg.torque.net/sg/sdparm.html) can stop (spin off) the drive instantly

Read this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=252959

 

[jikman]

Thanks. I actually figured that one out just after I posted the question. Seems to work OK and the best part is that I don't have to hear that horrible sound when you try to just unplug it after "safely removing" it.

I tried searching for that SDPARM a few weeks ago but I couldn't find it. Everybody seems to list that same link you listed but it's a broken link.

Thanks again.

 

[mahmood]

yes it is broken but maybe tempoary. I put it here http://ifile.it/6ctuw5j/sdparm.rar

Also see the a manual for this utility http://linux.die.net/man/8/sdparm

 

[Guest]

Hello,
I have a WD passport 250GB. The manual says that after "safley removing" the HD via USB port, the LED should be turned off.

When I "safely remove" the drive not only the LED is still ON, I can feel and hear that the drive is actually spinning. So What should I do? Shall I gently remove the drive regardless of the ON LED and spinning drive?

Thanks,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,
I have a WD passport 250GB. The manual says that after "safley removing" the HD via USB port, the LED should be turned off.

When I "safely remove" the drive not only the LED is still ON, I can feel and hear that the drive is actually spinning. So What should I do? Shall I gently remove the drive regardless of the ON LED and spinning drive?

Thanks,