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IDLE3CTL(8) System Manager's Manual IDLE3CTL(8)

NAME

idle3ctl - disable, get or set the idle3 timer on Western Digital HDD

SYNOPSIS

idle3ctl [ flags ] [device] ..

DESCRIPTION

idle3ctl can disable, get and set the value of the infamous idle3 timer found on recent Western Digital Hard Disk Drives. Idle3ctl can be used as an alternative to the official wdidle3.exe proprietary utility, without the need to reboot in a DOS environment. Idle3ctl is an independent project, unrelated in any way to Western Digital Corp.

THIS SOFTWARE IS EXPERIMENTAL, NOT WELL TESTED AND ACCESSES LOW LEVEL INFORMATION OF YOUR HARDDRIVE. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

OPTIONS

When no flags are given, -g is assumed.

Display help
Show version and exit
activate verbose output, mainly useful for debugging.
force execution even if no Western Digital HDD are detected
get raw idle3 timer value
get idle3 timer value as wdidle3 v1.00 would display it
get idle3 timer value as wdidle3 v1.03 would display it
disable idle3 timer
set idle3 timer raw value. Value must be an integer between 1 and 255. The idle3 timer is set in 0.1s for the 1-128 range, and in 30s for the 129-255 range.

BUGS

Please report any bugs on the sourceforge tracker at https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=329372&atid=1381968

EXIT STATUS

idle3ctl will return zero on success and non zero on failure.

AUTHOR

idle3ctl has been written by Christophe Bothamy <cbothamy at users.sf.net>.

SEE ALSO

http://idle3-tools.sourceforge.net Idle3-tools website

http://www.wdc.com/
Western Digital website
January 2011 Version 0.9