hdapm - How do I do this?

Hi

Don't know if this will help, but it worked for me:

There is no way to fix this through System Preferences. Unchecking "Put the hard disks to sleep when possible" has no effect, nor does pushing the slider to never sleep.

The fix is unfortunately a little long winded but it works, and I'm ecstatic. Here it is:

Hard drive behaviour must be modified at a lower level, i.e. power management.

hdapm is the answer.

1) Enable root user: Open Directory Utility located in Application » Utilities. You may have to unlock Directory Utility to make changes. Once it's unlocked, go to Edit » Enable Root User, and then type in a password for your root user. Now logout and there will be an option for Other user. Log in as "root" and use your root user password.

2) Create usr/local/bin folder :

/usr/local/bin doesn't exist by default. You have to create it.

To create the folder (if it doesn't exist already) and open a Finder window:

In the terminal... (Utilities/Terminal) enter these 3 commands in succession

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

cd /usr/local/bin

open .

3) Download hdapm, a command line utility for hard drive power management, here: http://mckinlay.net.nz/hdapm/

4) Drag and drop hdapm executable into usr/local/bin and hdam.plist into Library/LaunchDaemons (to enable hdapm to run at every startup)

Reboot. Your hard drive is now running at maximum power settings.

FIXED! NO MORE CLINKING/CHIRPING NOISES

Disable root user

A slightly less intrusive way of doing the stuff mentioned by gasboy. This works when your user account is an administrator on the system.

Open the diskimage and copy the files to your home directory (with the house icon). Open Terminal (find it with Spotlight). You will need to copy the lines the begin with the $-sign to the Terminal, don't copy the $ itself though.

$ sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin

It will ask for your password. And might lecture you a bit about admin rights. After that it will make the required directory for the program to live in.

$ sudo ~/hdapm disk max

This will set your main disk disk to maximum performance == no clicks

$ sudo cp ~/hdapm /usr/local/bin/
$ sudo cp ~/hdapm.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/

This will install the program and run it every boot.

Message was edited by: Henk Poley

1) Enable root user:

There is no need to do this, especially since in step 2 you:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin

If you're logged in as root, you don't use sudo. If you're not logged in as root, sudo temporarily elevates your privileges to let you do things that normally only root could do.

Has anyone noticed that with hdapm tool running, the OS won't let your system sleep? I have my MacBook Pro set to sleep after 45 minutes, but it never does. Is there a way around this?

I've installed this an it seems to have stopped the horribly clicking coming from my new MacBook's HDD. Is this safe to do then? What does it actually DO ?

Thanks for the responses. Thought I'd try Henk Poley's way as it looked a bit easier. As mentioned my user account is an administrator. I got as far as the first line in terminal, then it warned me about data loss and asked me for the password. After that it wont allow me to input anything. This is also as far as I got after trying Gasboys method. (Managed to enable root user and assign password, but fell over with password in terminal) Any ideas?

Chrisl46 wrote:
Thought I'd try Henk Poley's way … I got as far as the first line in terminal, then it warned me about data loss and asked me for the password. After that it wont allow me to input anything. This is also as far as I got after trying Gasboys method.

What Henk failed to mention is that when it asks for your password, it also turns off echoing back what you type (not even asterisks) for security reasons: just type your password and press return. gasboy didn't even mention the password.

So try again, and don't make a typo! 😉

this seems to be a huge issue.

linux folks have been aware of this for a long time.

read this 90 page thread.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=591503

similar issue is going on here.

my guess is that apple thinks replacing a HDD every year (or every 6 months) is less important than heat issues........

You may have problem with permissions. Apple documentation states that daemons and their property lists must be owned by root user and must not be group or world writable.

i followed all instructions for installing hdapm. i restart my macbook alu and i continue hearing the clicking sound.
what to do?
i have western digital black scorpio 7200