El capitan & keep drive spinning

[Jonathan David Neal]

Hi-

I am running an external Thunderbolt G-drive and my OS is Mac El Capitan 10.11.6-I can't get Keep Drive Running. The G-drive goes to sleep no matter what. When I try to install it doesn't work and doesn't seem to put the applescript into the launch agents folder. Any suggestions?

[Jon Stovell]

Please run the Diagnostic.applescript file that is included in the download, and then paste the full transcript of the report it generates here. That should give me what I need to figure out what is going on with your drive.

[Jonathan David Neal]

Here is the diagnostics read out:

Result:

-------

The Keep Drive Spinning launch agent for G1-JDN-SSD1_bk is working correctly.

If the drive falls asleep despite this, it may be suffering from a bad connection or failing hardware.

Details:

--------

OS version:

10.11.6

Volume info:

Name: G1-JDN-SSD1_bk

Path: /Volumes/G1-JDN-SSD1_bk

Format: Mac OS Extended format

Current date:

2018-03-17 07:46:59 PDT

Contents of hidden file:

2018-03-17 07:46:59 PDT

Status of all loaded Keep Drive Spinning launch agents:

- 0 info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G4-Logic&Movies

- 0 info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G2-Travel-bak

- 0 info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.JDN-SSD1

- 0 info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G1-JDN-SSD1_bk

- 0 info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G3-LogicInstruments

Launch agent path:

/Users/jonathandavidneal/Library/LaunchAgents/info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G1-JDN-SSD1_bk.plist

Launch agent contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"><plist version="1.0">

  <dict>

    <key>Label</key>

    <string>info.stovell.KeepDriveSpinning.G1-JDN-SSD1_bk</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>

    <array>

      <string>/bin/bash</string>

      <string>-c</string>

      <string>if [[ -w '/Volumes/G1-JDN-SSD1_bk'/.keepThisDriveSpinning ]]; then date '+%F %T %Z' &gt; '/Volumes/G1-JDN-SSD1_bk'/.keepThisDriveSpinning; fi</string>

    </array>

    <key>RunAtLoad</key>

    <true/>

    <key>StartInterval</key>

    <integer>60</integer>

  </dict>

</plist>

Writing to the hidden file:

Succeeded

[Jon Stovell]

Hi Jonathan,

According to that output, the software is indeed working as expected. You can see that from the fact that the content of the hidden file is a date that is less that 60 seconds older than the date on which you ran the diagnostic (in this case, they actually happen to be identical, but that just means you ran the diagnostic a fraction of a second after the last time the launch agent updated the file).

Unfortunately that means that if your drive is falling asleep anyway, it may be suffering from a bad connection or failing hardware.

If the drive is still under warranty, try taking it back to the store and asking for a replacement. If they ask why, tell them that the drive keeps powering down even when it is in active use. If returning the drive is not an option for you, you might want to investigate further using the built-in Disk Utility app or some third-party disk diagnostic and repair software.

Sorry I don't have better news for you.

Jon