HDD LED CONSTANTLY ON

[amanua]

I noticed for the second time the hdd led on a filesrv with 80gb hitachi hard drive mirrored is constanly on for hours even when users on the net work are not accessing files.
I checked the events viewer but did not notice any error message and users are not complaining of any problem
Any idea to reverse this problem

 

[ski]

If you can hear that the HD is constantly running, then it may either be failing, or something is continuously accessing it.
If it's not making any noises to indicate that it's continuously running, then there may be a problem either with its LED light assembly, or with the MB's LED HD circuit.

 

[KevinADC]

Is there any automatic maintenance software that runs in the background? Does the HDD have some built in data protection firmware that kicks in when the drive is idle? Is the LED cable plugged up properly?

 

[BrucesXP]

I saw this once with an old but funtional zip drive installed. Removed the Zip drive and everything was normal, mind you it all worked with light always on but it's kind of annoying isn't it . . .

Never delved deeper but suggest you try removing drives to the minimum of the C drive and see if the problem disappears at some point

HTH

 

[KevinADC]

the LED light always on is an indication the led cable is plugged in backwards. I don't think that's what the OP was inferring though.

 

[BrucesXP]

I've never managed to get a NON multicoloured LED to light up reverse polarity but I do agree that plugging it onto the wrong header could certainly cause this.

However as we debate this the OP has yet to tell us if the HDD is actually active or it is just the light that is on. The Original message implies it sometimes goes out which would be useful data if you could confirm

Bruce

 

[edfair]

There have been instances where the HDC has failed and the LED stays lit all the time.
There was also a thread a year or so ago in XP that was resolved that XP wrote something into the HD controller that caused it.
For testing purposes, it might be interesting to put another hard drive in place and use something like 98 to see if it fails with the different operating system.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[amanua]

This is feedback to my question for the hdd led
I checked SATA cables and the hdd led and everything was fine and there was no unusal noise from the drives so I contacted the tech support for Hitachi and this is the answer they gave me through chat( Yes our Newer drives only require 3.3V for the LED power instead of the 5V the old drives used to.
JD: if you use a 5V source, it sometimes burns out the logic circuit
JD: it will not affect the drive's function
JD: It does not affect the function of the MB or the HDD...
Well this is what the manufacturer says so I have to take their word