WD20EARS just added on the official HCL - mistake and issues

Andreas wrote:
...However, is it possible to use the WDIDLE from a notebook and the WD15EARS attached via USB? I don't own a "normal" PC. Furthermore it would be nice if you could include in your post a link to your "How-to" for WDIDLE..

Hi Andreas,

Specifically for you, the "How-to" is updated. :) If anything is amiss or needs to be updated, please let me know and I'll take care of it. :)

If you want to use WDIDLE3 from a notebook, you may be very limited, unfortunately. Western Digital states that the WDIDLE3 utility scans - specifically - the SATA bus for hard drives. It's not the global scan you might be hoping for that would allow you use use USB or other adapters to utilize a notebook. :(
However, what that should mean (and note that I haven't tested this) is that if you have eSATA ports on your laptop and can utilize those, that the utility should work. My inclination is that the utility should work on any drive/connection combination that is directly visible to the system from BIOS. What I mean is that if the drive is recognized by BIOS in some way, WDIDLE3 should see it if it's on a SATA bus (which ought to include an eSATA port). If it worked with a USB adapter, I would be most pleasantly surprised, but I'd expect it to work on an eSATA connection. :)