Western Digital Spindown/Stop Utility for External Drive: WD Spindown/Stop Utility for External Drive is a Windows utility that runs under Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP. The utility was designed to allow the user to put a WD external drive (USB or 1394) in the standby mode and/or remove the drive from the system. Main features: - It gives a list of all WD external drives connected to the USB and 1394 ports. - Allows the user to select a drive to: - Send into the standby mode where the drive spins down and consumes less power, - and/or safely remove it from the system. Installation: Unzip the program package and run setup.exe to install the program. A "WD Spindown or Stop Utility" shortcut will be created on the Desktop and a "WD Spindown or Stop Utility" folder will be created in the program menu containing two program links - "WD Spindown or Stop Utility" (the program) and "Readme" (this file). Functions: Standby Button -Put the drive in the standby mode. The button is grayed out if this feature is not supported. For example, WD Media Center and Dual-Option drives may not support this function with USB connection. Stop Button -Safely remove the drive from the system. A warning message will be displayed if there are any open files or files being accessed by any background programs or services Readme Button -Open this file Spindown external drives at system shutdown Checkbox -Check this checkbox to spindown WD external USB and 1394 drives prior to the system shutdown. Show program icon on the taskbar Checkbox -Uncheck this checkbox if you want to this program to quit completely. To restart the program, click on the program link on the desktop or program menu. Systray Popup Menu -Rightclick on the systray icon to pop up a menu that shows a list of WD external drive. Select a drive and click to remove it from the system. Notes: When this utility is used, Windows does not know if the drives are being spun down. Applications need to wait until the drives become active before any drive commands are completed (e.g. read or write files). If any application does not wait, the operation will fail and errors may occur. It is recommended for the user to save any data before running this utility. Some drives may take up to several seconds to become active again. If a drive that is being accessed by Windows is sent into Standby mode, the drive may be automatically activated by the OS.Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.