Optimal WDIDLE3 Setting For WD20EARS Hard Drives

To completely disable the Idle3 Timer, type "wdidle3 /S[10000000000]

That is a 1 followed by 10 zeros, this disabled the timer for me, where as /D only set it to 62 minutes.

Other details:

  • Used Ultimate Boot CD with both wdidle3.exe and wdidle3.exe compressed as .zip then renamed to .cab placed in the /dosapps folder (to learn how to do this, search Google for “wdidle3 ultimate boot cd” for tutorials.

  • Only the original Ultimate Boot CD worked, modified one gave ISOLINUX checksum error, so I booted with the original, started FreeDOS in silent mode, then switched the cd to the modified one

  • Type “T:”, then “cd ubcd\dosapps” the carry out the command written in the first line of this post

  • You can double check by typing “wdidle3 /R”

Good Luck