WD20EARS just added on the official HCL - mistake and issues

Hi again!

I've seen a few posts asking how to use WDIDLE3 and had a question regarding how I used it, so I thought I might post something to help people along. In retrospect, this was a step that I squandered a bit of time on before I got everything I needed together and figured it out, so hopefully this will ease any upgrade pains others might encounter. I can't guarantee that it will stay here forever, but I have posted an ISO of the bootable CD that I created using FreeDOS to run WDIDLE3 here: http://www.mikerosoft.org/Utilities/FreeDOS%20WDIDLE3.iso (mirror on readynas.com). It's my website, so it shouldn't be going anywhere any time soon. :)

As long as you have CD or bootable flash drive creating software, you can write this image to a CD, allowing you to boot directly to a "DOS" prompt and run WDIDLE3. If there are any questions, issues, or requests to update it, just let me know and I'll do what I can. I hope this helps!

Update:
Part of the reason I provided the ISO file was because the tools required to create it can only execute under a 32-bit OS (that was hard to find for me). However, should anybody like to make their own bootable ISO for WDIDLE3 (or, really, anything that needs a DOS boot disk), here are the steps:

1. Download the FreeDOS Ripcord BootDisk OEM CD-ROM disc builder assistant from http://www.fdos.org/bootdisks/. You want the disc builder assistant because it's designed to let you create a customized ISO with very little trouble. It is named "FDOEMCD.builder.zip" and can be directly downloaded at http://www.mikerosoft.org/Utilities/FDOEMCD.builder.zip (the original website is apparently down as of September 19, 2010 or so).


2. Extract the contents of the CD-ROM builder to a folder on your computer. You should have a rood folder named "FDOEMCD" containing other folders (e.g. "CDROOT" and "CDBTDKS") and some scripts / files (e.g. "makeiso.bat" and "mkbtdsk.bat").


3. Place any files that you want available when a computer boots from this disk in the "CDROOT" folder under the main "FDOEMCD" folder. Do not put them in the "isolinux" folder inside "CDROOT". You want your files (and folders) in the same location as the "autoexec.bat" file (which you can optionally modify if you want things to automatically run). In this case, you want to copy "WDIDLE3.EXE" to the "CDROOT" folder.


4. Return to the root "FDOEMCD" folder and double-click "makeiso.bat". You can also do this from a command prompt, if you like. :) This will create the ISO file "fdoem.iso" in the same directory ("FDOEMCD").


5. Burn this ISO to a flash drive or (more easily) CD-ROM/RW and use it as you see fit. :D


As I said, the major caveat with this method is that it's limited to running on a 32-bit OS. I've tried running it on one of my 64-bit systems with no success at all. However, this is a very clean method for making customized, usable DOS boot disks that I hope you'll all find useful. :D

Additional Update:

Thanks to the work of kd4z, there is now an ISO using FreeDOS that combines the WDIDLE3 and TLER utilities. kd4z has incorporated an autoexec.bat file and other support batch files to automate the application of the utilities. This ISO can be downloaded at http://www.mikerosoft.org/Utilities/FreeDOS%20WDIDLE3%20and%20TLER.iso. Enjoy!