I am on Arch Linux and I want to disable this activity indicator light on a WD hard drive. I know there is a software on Windows for doing that, but since I am on Linux, how could I do it? This light is annoying when I am in a dark room.
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For an actual answer, it looks like WD has something called
wdckitthat is available on request.I see a corresponding AUR entry that looks like it's grabbing some zip from a personal Russian CDN. Super sketchy looking tbh.
But it's possible this tool has whatever functionality the windows WD Utility uses to toggle the light in the drive's firmware.
IMO, it's not worth it. I'd just go the electrical tape route and maybe ask WD Customer Support if there's a way, and if not, ask that they support Linux better in the future.
Wow this is the exact perfect example of why someone should install from AUR as less as possible, manually checking the pkgbuild and not just "yay yolo"
In this case the archive seems to be clean and be what wd would send if contacted, (even Windows versions are in the zip)
Btw WTF WD. Why making a tool and its documentation only available on request?? It is nothing special, more or less do the same stuff that the GUI can do (show details, send erase command, send ATA password command).
It doesn't seem to be able to disable the activity LED