hard drive light stays on winxp 1

[theheadhobbit]

I just upgraded my system to winxp pro and everything is going fine except my hard drive light stays on all the time. It comes on as soon as I turn the power on. It continues to function just fine. I did not open my case or change anything hardware related. Is there perhaps a BIOS setting I need to change? I looked but could not detect anything.


Thank you

 

[TekTippy4U]

Is your HDD working(Write/read) all the time?.....
If not, could it be a bad bulb/light....maybe you bumped machine.....Open and look
If your HDD is working OT, thats an entirely diff problem

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[theheadhobbit]

As best I can tell my HD is not working all the time, so I will open the case and take a look. BTW what am I looking for? a disconnected wire on the light or ... ?

Thank you

 

[TekTippy4U]

It can't hurt to take a look......be careful....make sure you shut down properly and YANK that power cord from the back of PC....don't just shut off the power strip(i.e. No connection to wall outlet even if off)..
Then always have one hand on the metal case(not the cover) before and when reaching inside (to keep you discharged of static charge...just in case you touch something you shouldn't)...
Anyway, I was trying to say that maybe the bulb/unit has a faulty/broken filament...?
I personally can't think of a reason why any OS would cause this...but..

Wait for others to weigh in, as maybe this specific issue has been seen/fixed by them. (Search the TekTips database/FAQ's).

Just trying to be safe, while being hopefully somewhat helpful..

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[TekTippy4U]

If no ones biting in this thread......maybe post it in "XP pro area" too.....and even the "PC hardware - General discussion Forum"
Good Luck

TT4U
Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[theheadhobbit]

Thanks TT4U, I will give the other forums and the inside of my case a try as soon as I meet my newsletter deadline. No dead computers before there time.

 

[dtach]

I have the same problem - win xp home version, the light stays on all the time, but the drive is not making any noises or anything like it's being accessed. It seemed to start the day I tried dumping all the internet files in MIE, and my system crashed. I noticed the light on after booting up again and it's been on ever since. Norton says that the OS or other software has control of the drive, and can't do a chkdsk routine. I have noticed that when I run the Western Digital utilities, the system is in DOS and the light starts working normally again. BTW, the drive checks out perfect. It seems to me that this must be a windows problem with open files or something, but norton doesn't find any windows errors that fix the problem when I run the disk utilities. Pissing me off, thinking about fdisking it and then reload my backup. Any ideas are welcomed.

dtach

 

[norty303]

Just like to raise a point....

It can't hurt to take a look......be careful....make sure you shut down properly and YANK that power cord from the back of PC....don't just shut off the power strip(i.e. No connection to wall outlet even if off)..
Then always have one hand on the metal case(not the cover) before and when reaching inside (to keep you discharged of static charge...just in case you touch something you shouldn't)...

If you want to ensure you are earthed then you need to ensure the power cord <b>is</b> connected as you are relying on the earthing in the cable to discharge any electricity (this is in UK, countries that don't use a third earthing cable should do something different)
Most computer cases have rubber feet and so will not take a charge from you unless it has a grounding point.

Also the actual current on the output of a PSU is very small unless it's broken (but you're hardware would have fried by then!) Just ensure that the PSU is off if it has a switch and the outlet socket is switched off.

 

[theheadhobbit]

Well, to get back to this, I finally made the time to check out my hard drive. I have &quot;fixed&quot; the problem but not sure what the results tell me.

I opened the case and checked the cables etc. Nothing changed. I then decided to unplug &quot;extras&quot; one at a time to see if that made any difference. I had a very old HD in this computer that I use to archive some of my data. After unplugging it my main HD now works just fine. I have not had a chance to try the old HD in another computer to see if it does the same thing. Or could this be a flag that says maybe my power supply is on the way out? Are there any programs that will give you info on HD or power supply health?

Anyway dtach it doesn't seem to have anything to do with windows xp.

Thanks for everyone's input. I'm going to leave this open in case anyone has further info or suggestions.

theheadhobbit

 

[TekTippy4U]

This article may point you in the direction/nature of problem.....I would think this would be most prevalent on older drives..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;223294

TT4U

Notification:
These are just &quot;my&quot; thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[dtach]

Thanks alot you guys for your ideas, but I'm still working on my version of the problem. Someone told me to replace my ribbon cables, so am going to try that next. Beside the dang light staying on, the computer runs just fine though. Never ran into this one before....

 

[theheadhobbit]

Well as perhaps my last thought on this matter. I placed the old hard drive in an old win98 machine and everything ran fine. I did check out the article that tt4u suggested but I was not sure what to do with the info, so I went to the old machine to help.

So I take back my statement that it has nothing to do with windows xp. New operating system = newer hardware.

theheadhobbit

 

[NightHawke]

This reeks of a XP software issue, not a hardware problem.. Check to see what mode the IDE controller in XP is set at (control panel/system/hardware/device manager/ide devices/) I bet that XP thinks that the drive is a PIO mode drive and the light is staying on for that reason..

 

[dtach]

Nope - says DMA, that's not it..... starting to think it's the mother board, as the light stays on even at a dos prompt. On from the time I turn it on until power is off. Got to be some kind of hardware problem vs. software, but smart drive reports both connected hard drives are &quot;OK&quot; at post. Cables have been replaced, and there is absolutely no sign that anything is wrong as far as the way it runs, it's an AMD Athlon 1800 on a gigabyte MB with a gig of memory, 2700 spec. There is no slow down or loss of data, or noises or anything etc. Only clue I have is that norton utilities will not run a chkdsk routine - says something is accessing the hard drive or atleast it thinks something is.

If I unplug the primary IDE from the board and attempt to boot, should the light then be off or will it be on. Trying to figure out a way to test and illiminate the possible hardware causes one by one etc.

Thanks, dtach

 

[sellar]

I have this problem also. I have just installed from bare (formated only) disk Windows XP. After two weeks of fixing problems I have two outstanding.
1. When the PC comes out of standby the drive light stays on all the time.
2. After I shutdown, if I turn off at the wall socket, the next time I turn on the wall socket the PC boots.

I was running Widows 98 before, I have not changed any hardware and have only reloaded the same applications I was running before. I did not have these problem with Win 98.

I suspect its a Windows XP power management problem as the Operating system is the only change on my PC.

Any ideas, leads or solutions please?

 

[Sukrillux]

I am very doubtful that Windows XP is the problem, because I have this problem also. My hard drive (120Gb NTFS) is slowing down so badly that I can't play a movie or even an mp3 without it skipping. I've had XP Professional for a year and a half and the hard drive since spring. I just noticed the HD light staying on yesterday, when I was editing video. The only recent hardware change that I have made was adding a Dual Format DVD Writer (Optorite). My theory is that the HD is on it's way out, but I hope this isn't true. It can't even get through a scandisk and it's now stuggling just to defragment and has been for the past 15 hours.

 

[dtach]

I finally figured out what the cause was in my case. I had installed a zip drive, and had to re-arrange the positon of the hard drives (2) and cd rom to put it in the case since I was using it with the case adapter that makes it look like a cd rom size unit. When I put the zip on the ribbon cable, it was set as master and the cd was set as slave, but I put the zip at the end of the cable instead of in first position where a master drive should be located. Once I switched it around, the light went off and all was well again.

dtach

 

[grayday]

dtech, you're a genious!!! I've been driving myself crazy for about a month with this same problem. UG! You have fixed it for me!!!!!

 

[sellar]

My hard drive is not very old and it runs well, will defrag and will play video OK, so I don't think it is the problem.

I did replace my CD with a DVD/CD (player only) just before I went to XP and I also run a Zip drive and CD burner. All I did was, unplug and remove the old CD and plug in the DVD in its place and install the driver.

I checked the cables and the jumper settings, the jumpers are all correct. The slave drives are not on the end of the cable but they weren't before I went to XP and the HD light did not stay on with Win 98. I did not think it would matter where they were on the cable as the jumper sets the drive addressing. Is this the case? If it's not I will try switching the plugs. It could be Win 98 does not care where the drive is on the cable and XP does?

The thing that puzzles me is the HD light only stays on after the PC go to standby and stays in standby for more than about 10 minutes, if it never goes to standby its fine.

 

[Zaphod1620]

I just now started having this problem as well. System Monitor says there is no read/write activity taking place. I am also running Windows XP home. There is no hardware problem (all cables have been checked, etc.), BIOS is fine, and the IDE controller is fine. Those if with this problem, you don't happen to be running a Compaq/Hewlitt Packard system are you?

-Zaphod1620