Still no Kangaroo. Maybe next week. Which brings another point.
I want the command from the laptop to be forwarded to the drive but if the laptop is off (low battery) the arduino enters seek nest behavior. I considered just using a relay to switch the TX and RX lines from laptop to microcontroller but serial comms would have to be reestablished after the switch so I think i will need a more robust solution. But I will try it when the kangaroo comes in.