Get CD-ROM to standby/spin down

mmecpa · 09-28-2006, 03:14 PM

Posted here b/c laptops frequently deal with acpi/apm issues (have STF, etc.):
Old Dell Dimension 4100 desktop hardware being repurposed with IDE CD-ROM that won't standby (even in a testing environment or single-user mode). It responds to hdparm -y /dev/cdrom by standing by properly, but, once accessed, it won't go back to stand by unless sent that command again. It accepts hdparm -S commands but seems to ignore them. The drive does not support advancedPM. There is no acpi configuration in software.

Thanks,
Andy

macemoneta · 09-30-2006, 12:01 AM

I didn't see a question in there. If you're asking how to make it spin down, I think you answered yourself:

Quote:

The drive does not support advancedPM.

Unless the BIOS on that machine has an option to spin down the drive after an idle interval, I don't think you will get too far. You can certainly write your own daemon to monitor the drive I/O and force it to immediate standby (since that works), but it hardly seems worth the effort for a one-off problem.