HDD LEDs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Noozer
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Noozer

In these modern times HDD do not have anywhere to mount an LED to see
individual drive activity. Does anyone know where one could connect an LED
to a drive to see when it was busy?

I'm particularly interested in Maxtor 250 and 300 gig DiamondMax drives.

Thx!
 
You can look at the Mojometer.

The MoJoMeter is a replacement for your standard hard drive activity
LED. It draws all needed power from the HD connection on the
motherboard to power the meter and the two LEDs built into it.

http://www.retrosystem.com/hdmeter.shtml

This meter has onboard circuitry that translates activity on your hard
drive into a retro-meter display by moving the needle and activating
the LEDs as needed. The circuit board is custom etched and all
components are surface mounted and assembled by hand.

Although I might ask, why do you want to have this LED?

For more about computer hard drives, check out this article:
http://www.build-your-own-computers.com/how-to-buy-cd-dvd-hard-drive.html
 
Gary Hendricks said:
You can look at the Mojometer.

The MoJoMeter is a replacement for your standard hard drive activity
LED. It draws all needed power from the HD connection on the
motherboard to power the meter and the two LEDs built into it.

http://www.retrosystem.com/hdmeter.shtml
Click to expand...

Very cool... but unfortunately too large for my needs.
Although I might ask, why do you want to have this LED?
Click to expand...

This is an MCE PC (Gateway FMC-901) and it has no HDD indicators on the unit
and no place on the mainboard to connect one. I'd like to plant a couple
LED's into the front of the unit so I can tell when it's busy.
 
Very cool... but unfortunately too large for my needs.


This is an MCE PC (Gateway FMC-901) and it has no HDD indicators on the
unit and no place on the mainboard to connect one. I'd like to plant a
couple LED's into the front of the unit so I can tell when it's busy.
Click to expand...

If there's no connectors on the FMC motherboard you'll have to look on the
hard drives for connectors. Probably a computer parts store or Radio
Shack might have an led light and connector you could attach to the hd.
You could even attach LED mods to each drive.

If there's no connector on the HD then you'll have to look for a software
solution like http://www.tiler.com/FreeMeter/meters/

google "software drive meters"
 
Noozer said:
In these modern times HDD do not have anywhere to mount an LED to see
individual drive activity. Does anyone know where one could connect an LED
to a drive to see when it was busy?

I'm particularly interested in Maxtor 250 and 300 gig DiamondMax drives.

Thx!
Click to expand...

According to Maxtor's knowledge base:

There is no way to connect an activity LED to a modern IDE hard drive
(the last drive Maxtor manufactured with this feature was the 7245A/AT
in 1994).

Instead, this feature is present on the IDE interface controller. Such
an LED will indicate activity on the IDE channel, not on a per drive
basis. The relevant pins can be found either built into the motherboard
(if the IDE interface is built onto the onboard chipset), or on a
plug-in PCI card (if the IDE interface is not built onto the motherboard
ie a Promise UDMA/100 card). The relevant motherboard or interface card
manufacturer would be able to provide you with further details on
connecting this LED.


Probably not what you wanted, but there it is.
 
In these modern times HDD do not have anywhere to mount an LED to see
individual drive activity. Does anyone know where one could connect an LED
to a drive to see when it was busy?

I'm particularly interested in Maxtor 250 and 300 gig DiamondMax drives.

Thx!
Click to expand...

There is no LED connector on the drive(s). The most likely
alternative is to use a per-IDE-channel LED by connecting
LED to the ATA interface pin 39, which appears to be an
active-low pin. By putting 5V on LED anode, resistor on
cathode and then resistor to pin 39 you might have it
working, but I have not done this and suggest you do more
Google research on "39 active LED ATA"

Some sources indicate you will not need the resistor at all,
but I'd probably measure the current before being
comfortable assuming it's always true.
 
Noozer said:
In these modern times HDD do not have anywhere to mount an LED to see
individual drive activity. Does anyone know where one could connect an LED
to a drive to see when it was busy?

I'm particularly interested in Maxtor 250 and 300 gig DiamondMax drives.

Thx!
Click to expand...

You can try hdi.exe, (Hard Drive Indicator) which puts an indicator in your
system tray. It looks like a large LED and indicates the hard drive
activity. You can select more than one drive to monitor, too.

It's a very small zipped file, and for the life of me, through Google, I
can't find the site for you, but there are a lot of freeware sites you can
search through. Meanwhile I will continue to look.

Dave C.
 
Dave C. said:
You can try hdi.exe, (Hard Drive Indicator) which puts an indicator in
your system tray. It looks like a large LED and indicates the hard drive
activity. You can select more than one drive to monitor, too.

It's a very small zipped file, and for the life of me, through Google, I
can't find the site for you, but there are a lot of freeware sites you can
search through. Meanwhile I will continue to look.

Dave C.
Click to expand...

Noozer, found the download site for the Hard Disk Indicator at PCWorld:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,23027,00.asp

Dave C.
 
Bill Bradshaw said:
Or go to:

http://www.lonewolf.gr
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I want to see the drive activity on the PC, not on the
screen. 90% of the time there will be no monitor selected on this PC.

I'm sure that there is an easy way to add an LED from the IDE cable, just
haven't had time to look.
 
Unfortunately, I want to see the drive activity on the PC, not on the
screen. 90% of the time there will be no monitor selected on this PC.

I'm sure that there is an easy way to add an LED from the IDE cable, just
haven't had time to look.
Click to expand...


As I said before any electrical / computer component outlet should have
led mods for you. Your main problem is where to connect the mods so you
don't affect current running through the system or data transfer. You
could check the motherboard for points where the hd connectors should
be or on the hd circuit board.

http://case-mods.linear1.org/hdd-header-hints/
http://www.bit-tech.net/article/83/

Of course you could also buy two enclosures which have built-in leds

lol
 
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