Hard drive light stays on

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jon Davis
  • Start date Start date
J

Jon Davis

My hard drive light is stuck on. It's not grinding as far as I can tell.
It's not the OS; it will stay stuck on if I go into the BIOS. It turned off
after a couple hours after boot a few days ago, but now it just stays on and
I never see it blink. My performance seems to not suffer, but it worries me.

I don't think it's a cable issue, it worked normally and didn't start
staying solidly on until I threw in another (old) hard drive, but I pulled
that other hard drive out and the hard drive light was still stuck on, so I
put the other hard drive back in.

Any ideas?

Jon
 
... here's my config..

Both drives are Western Digital Caviars, I think. The main drive is SATA
320 GB, the other (old) drive is IDE 120 GB. Both pass the Western Digital
tests and SMART tests. The old drive does make a single loud click and a
power-down sound every few hours, but I can still access it when it happens
without hiccups or errors.

Motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4 w/ an Athlon 64 3000+ and 1GB dual channel
DDR RAM.

Jon
 
Alas, if you'd only mentioned your operating system. If it's Windows, I
suspect that there's something running. Do an Alt + Cntrl + Delete and
check out the programs and processes that are running. Try shutting down
some of the processes.
 
.. here's my config..

Both drives are Western Digital Caviars, I think. The main drive is SATA
320 GB, the other (old) drive is IDE 120 GB. Both pass the Western Digital
tests and SMART tests. The old drive does make a single loud click and a
power-down sound every few hours, but I can still access it when it
happens without hiccups or errors.

Motherboard is an MSI K8N Neo4 w/ an Athlon 64 3000+ and 1GB dual channel
DDR RAM.

Jon
Click to expand...

Two things wiring issue with the led, defrag issue with the HD.
You could go to safe mode Win and defrag, which also reorgs the registry
file. WD and Smart say the HDs are physically ok but filesystem may be
swapping pages.
 
I think I have seen two reasons for an HD LED staying on, if the HD is
not actually running. The first is the HD LED wiring is backward. If
you have had any reason to remove the LED connector, try changing the
polarity.

The other reason was because of a problem with devices other than the
Hard drives. Check your CD or DVD drives to make sure the jumpers are
correct. If you have a DVD burner, try making it master. If you have a
DVD Burner and a CD Burner, try removing the CD burner (reset the
jumpers) to see if it helps. In my case I had a Plextor DVD burner and
a Plextor CD burner and I could not get them to work on the same system.

Clark
 
proper drivers are installed for HD controllers?
DMA is enabled (9xwin)?
indexing turned off (find fast -MS office)?
media sniffers?
virtual memory settings are correct?
 
I've the same symptoms here for the past year or so & it only happened since
I put an internal zip100 in the other floppy slot & have now got all IDE
positions filled. Apparently it's quite common after installing internal
Zip100.
I just removed the wires from the motherboard.......... no dramas.
 
jaster said:
Two things wiring issue with the led, defrag issue with the HD.
Click to expand...

Nope, was working normally before, like I said.
You could go to safe mode Win and defrag, which also reorgs the registry
file.
Click to expand...

Nope, stays on even when browsing BIOS settings, like I said.

Jon
 
Incidentally, I've defragged this drive to hell and back, even used BootVis
to optimize.

I'm talking days.. like, weeks, solidly on, with tons of hardware RAM to
spare. This is NO visible performance hit, all like I said.

Is there anyone out there who reads this stuff? If I say "it's solidly on
when I go into my BIOS", people tell me to look at my operating system, and
I say "it's not wiring because it worked normally before, until I added
another drive," and people tell me it's a wiring problem. Oh my god.

I think my drive is just toast, because one would think someone out there
who knows how to read and who has seen this problem before (apparently a
rare combination) would be able to point me in a meaningful direction
without wasting my time, and theirs for bothering to repeat that which I
already eliminated.

Jon
 
Jon Davis said:
Incidentally, I've defragged this drive to hell and back, even used BootVis
to optimize.

I'm talking days.. like, weeks, solidly on, with tons of hardware RAM to
spare. This is NO visible performance hit, all like I said.

Is there anyone out there who reads this stuff? If I say "it's solidly on
when I go into my BIOS", people tell me to look at my operating system, and
I say "it's not wiring because it worked normally before, until I added
another drive," and people tell me it's a wiring problem. Oh my god.

I think my drive is just toast, because one would think someone out there
who knows how to read and who has seen this problem before (apparently a
rare combination) would be able to point me in a meaningful direction
without wasting my time, and theirs for bothering to repeat that which I
already eliminated.

Jon
Click to expand...
Check your Master/Master w/o Slave jumper settings. A while back I installed
a WD as master on my secondary channel and the DVD burner that was slave on
the primary channel stayed on all the time. Changing the WD(on the
secondary) to Master w/o slave corrected the problem.

If wrong guesses are such a problem try Google.
 
Jon Davis said:
Incidentally, I've defragged this drive to hell and back, even used BootVis
to optimize.

I'm talking days.. like, weeks, solidly on, with tons of hardware RAM to
spare. This is NO visible performance hit, all like I said.

Is there anyone out there who reads this stuff? If I say "it's solidly on
when I go into my BIOS", people tell me to look at my operating system, and
I say "it's not wiring because it worked normally before, until I added
another drive," and people tell me it's a wiring problem. Oh my god.
Click to expand...

Do you think this is a paid for help site, that you can complain and
bitch..........?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All like I said....................
I think my drive is just toast, because one would think someone out there
who knows how to read and who has seen this problem before (apparently a
rare combination) would be able to point me in a meaningful direction
without wasting my time, and theirs for bothering to repeat that which I
already eliminated.
Click to expand...
GFY, and take your rig to a person that you can PAY, that way they will be
more than happy to hear your whinning. If you don't know crap, don't touch
your machine. Bottom line...YOU added a hard drive and screwed something up.
Did you 'reset configuration data' after adding and removing major
components? HUH? whats that? Did you clear your cmos? HUH? whats that? Just
so you know ALL post in their entirity are sometimes missing according to
what stupid server you use. Get out your wallet, you cheap SOB.
 
Do you think this is a paid for help site, that you can complain and
bitch..........?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

It's a peer support group. It exists for people to exchange answers to
problems. The initial answerers did not bother to read the details of my
issue, that's all I said.

Nobody owes me anything. Even so, people waste mine and their time.
Especially you.

*plonk*

Jon
 
T Shadow said:
Check your Master/Master w/o Slave jumper settings. A while back I
installed
a WD as master on my secondary channel and the DVD burner that was slave
on
the primary channel stayed on all the time. Changing the WD(on the
secondary) to Master w/o slave corrected the problem.
Click to expand...

It's a SATA drive, as I mentioned. No master/slave option. Good guess tho.
If wrong guesses are such a problem try Google.
Click to expand...

Tried that, came here as a last resort, but I'll keep Googling. Thanks!

Jon
 
Jon said:
Incidentally, I've defragged this drive to hell and back, even used BootVis
to optimize.

I'm talking days.. like, weeks, solidly on, with tons of hardware RAM to
spare. This is NO visible performance hit, all like I said.

Is there anyone out there who reads this stuff? If I say "it's solidly on
when I go into my BIOS", people tell me to look at my operating system, and
I say "it's not wiring because it worked normally before, until I added
another drive," and people tell me it's a wiring problem. Oh my god.

I think my drive is just toast, because one would think someone out there
who knows how to read and who has seen this problem before (apparently a
rare combination) would be able to point me in a meaningful direction
without wasting my time, and theirs for bothering to repeat that which I
already eliminated.

Jon
Click to expand...
I'm confused. There's no visible performance hit, yet you think your
hdard drive is toast. One of these things is very much *not* like the other.

Here's what I'd try (in order):

--Did you use the hard drive manufacturer's install utility. Some may
argue that it's unneccesary, but it can't hurt. It should be downloadble
if it didn't ship with the drive?

--I don't think you mentioned what OS you are running. Assuming XP, have
you gone gone to My Computer | Right mouse cick | Manage | open the
"Storage" entry and checked what's going on under "Disk Management" ?
There may be some clues there for you.

--Clear the CMOS jumper. Yeah yeah yeah, I read what you wrote about the
BIOS. I'd still give this a try as a last resort.


Based on everything you've said...over and over...sounds like
wiring/cabling issue to me.

Please don't ask if I read your posts. I did. You've probably received
more help than you deserve.
 
My hard drive light is stuck on. It's not grinding as far as I can tell.
It's not the OS; it will stay stuck on if I go into the BIOS. It turned off
after a couple hours after boot a few days ago, but now it just stays on and
I never see it blink. My performance seems to not suffer, but it worries me.

I don't think it's a cable issue, it worked normally and didn't start
staying solidly on until I threw in another (old) hard drive, but I pulled
that other hard drive out and the hard drive light was still stuck on, so I
put the other hard drive back in.
Click to expand...


I'm a bit confused about how what you describe (with the
drive addition/removal) makes you less sure, rather than
further suspecting, a cable issue. Plugging and unplugging
cables is in itself more likely to result in intermittent
contact and cable failure than if the cables had never been
*touched*.

Run the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics.
If you have a removable storage device connected (including
a thumbdrive or flash card reader (including one integral to
a printer), try disconnecting that, then power cycling the
system... leave it disconnected and see if HDD light stays
on.

Also check for programs running in background, things that
just coincidentally seemed to coinincide with the drive
change. Disable any suspect software and reboot.
 
i had a similar problem with hdd led staying solid on. i came to this
thread and read about the cd/dvd drives, so i unplugged one of my
drives that i had left connected but i did not hav power connected to
it and viola, my solid light turned off and back to normal. so yes
check ur ide/sata cables, mine were ide, most likely if my dvd drive
was being supplied power this would not happen but because it wasnt it
was probably creating a short circuit of sum sort and sending a messed
up signal.
 
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