I'd like to use hdparm via Grub to configure HDD APM before booting Windows. So I tried

on the Grub command line but it says "not an ATA device". I also tried

but it says device not found.

I found this:
https://www.unixadm.org/needful-things/ataunlock

and it tells what to do when the disk controller is in AHCI mode but Grub is not. I suppose this is the case on my computer - or am I wrong?

I tried to run nativedisk as instructed but it caused Grub to hang. How long should it take? I waited for 30 seconds at least.

According to that article I could install Grub using native disk module like this:
but how safe is this when the nativedisk command didn't apparently work as desired? And what happens when a package update wants to update Grub?

Setting the disk controller to IDE/ATA mode is possible but what are its side effects? Windows wouldn't like it?


There is a hdparm implementation for Windows, which I could use, but using Grub would be more elegant.
https://disablehddapm.blogspot.fi/

Windows power management settings are configured to never stop the hard disk but it still spins down. CrystalDiskInfo shows that the APM value is 96. It can be used to set the APM parameters but it seems that it can't be run on boot.

Computer is Thinkpad T410 with Debian 9 + Windows 7 on a single HDD.

It is a windows issue

I would not touch hdparm as those values are wrong for some drives. You have been warned!

So what has this to do with your running Spyware 95 from microsoft?

I am using grub2-install to tell my UEFI ASUS bios, hey i have gentoo linux on my drive, make partition sda2 bootable please. Job done, thanks.


ATA modes are afaik only an indicator on how "fast" a drive works.
optical drives reports lower ata modes as harddrives


First popup window in google chrome, search term: AHCI mode
you definitely want AHCI

Newbie feature so they can run windows95 on that platform most probably.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanc...ller_Interface
Makes things clear.

Parallel ATA emulation, => Hey my windows 95 does not run on my fancy pants notebook. Than you enable this!
standard AHCI mode (also known as native mode) => default mode, as designed for, usual best transfer rate. RAnt: why do they call it native mode?

vendor-specific RAID => fake raid, do not touch it for several reasons which are out of the scope.

-- the side effects may be that your box will refuse to load your spyware 95 maybe when you enable IDE emulation

-- It also seems you are mixing up shell commands, with build in grub recovery shell commands(which should maybe use busybox, but not sure!), with bios features.

--

When you want to disable the power down feature, do it in linux, do it windows.
linux. e.g. /etc/init.d/ custom script (Assuming you use something which is not SYSTEMD disease)
spyware95 e.g. fancy pants startup software which does this

--

Indicates you are wanting to change settings in your bios, which you should not when you do not know exactly what it does.

edit:

-- Warning. Not any of my past 7 drives had any correct smartctl values or hdparm values. Those linux tools are outdated. The manufacturers can choose whatever they like, whatever they like to interpret those values. Most of the time you see something like is not in teh drive database, and even so these values may work or not work.

Warning: When you are really on an old hdd with windows 7, which is dated, you may replace the drive asap. as the drive may die tommorrow without any notice and all your fancy data will be unrecoverable.

Hint: Also backups may help, but backups on unreliable media will be also unrecoverable.

--

The grub recovery shell has a subset of features. It is a recovery shell. Could be busybox based or not. too lazy to look that up. Just treat it as busybox alike shell, with same constraints.

Using hdparm to set the APM value for this disk works really well on Linux. It can be put into /etc/hdparm.conf and it is set on boot.

Also, CrystalDiskInfo can successfully set it on Windows but it can't do it during boot which is important.

I could use the aforementioned hdparm port for Windows, but I'd like to use the hdparm module of Grub(2) instead because it feels simpler.

I performed a quick search for "apm" through Windows registry but didn't find anything useful.


This is what I'm afraid of, and I'd not like to lose the AHCI features/performance either.

Your window$ take so much time to load that the drive goes to sleep?

No, this is not related to Windows startup time. With the default APM value of 60(hex) = 96, it spins down very easily unless it's accessed constantly.