Hard drive light stays on.

Question

Hi all,   I have a Dell Inspiron 8100. About 10 days ago I put in a new hard drive and reloaded everything. Only user files have come from backups. Since Wed. of this week the hard drive light has remained on constantly and from the heat around where the drive is located I suspect that the drive is being accessed by something. Defrag aborts when run and the drive needs defragging already...   I am running Win XP professional, I upgraded all the SW from the original CD's via MS website. Norton antivirus finds nothing. Ad Aware from Lavasoft only found a few cookies that it was concerned about. I have disabled all startup items and rebooted, without change in the hard drive.   HijackThis Log is as follows: ---------------Begin log--------------------------------- Logfile of HijackThis v1.98.2 Scan saved at 12:04:39 PM, on 11/13/2004 Platform: Windows XP  (WinNT 5.01.2600) MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 (6.00.2600.0000) Running processes: C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccSetMgr.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccEvtMgr.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\CCPD-LC\symlcsvc.exe C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccApp.exe C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\NMain.exe C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus
avapsvc.exe C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\SAVScan.exe C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\OUTLOOK.EXE C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\WINWORD.EXE C:\Program Files\Hijackthis\hijackthis\HijackThis.exe O2 - BHO: NAV Helper - {BDF3E430-B101-42AD-A544-FADC6B084872} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\System32\msdxm.ocx O3 - Toolbar: Norton AntiVirus - {42CDD1BF-3FFB-4238-8AD1-7859DF00B1D6} - C:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\NavShExt.dll O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SSC_UserPrompt] C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\Security Center\UsrPrmpt.exe O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ccApp] 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\ccApp.exe' O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MSMSGS] 'C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe' /background O4 - Global Startup: Microsoft Office.lnk = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\OSA.EXE O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~1\MICROS~2\Office10\EXCEL.EXE/3000 O9 - Extra button: Related - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINDOWS\webelated.htm O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Show &Related Links - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINDOWS\webelated.htm O16 - DPF: {6414512B-B978-451D-A0D8-FCFDF33E833C} (WUWebControl Class) - http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/v5consumer/V5Controls/en/x86/client/wuweb_site.cab?1099551561997 ------------------------end log----------------------------   I am concerned as this was the senario prior to my hard drive crashing 3 weeks ago, (why I now have a new hard drive). ANy ideas as to what is constantly accessing my hard drive would be greatly appreciated.   Thanks! - Archiek

archiek · Answer

A little more information.

I have noticed that the CPU is also at 99% usage. I looking at the processes, the "System Idle Process" is pegged at 99% most of the time. What does the system idle process do? Why would it be at 90% processing all the time?

- Archie

volcano11 · Answer

The system idle process keeps track of when the CPU is doing nothing i.e. it is idle. Thus, system idle process running at 99% means that 99% of the time the CPU is doing nothing. I doubt that is the cause of your problem.

Steve

archiek · Answer

In further research this afternoon the system idle process is definitely not part of the issue.

Thanks for the info. Any idea on why the hard drive is running continuously. It starts at the user login screen prior to anyone logging on and then continues from there on. The light is always on solid, not a flash like it is accessing data, just solid. Since this laptop is a plugin I would doubt that there is a loose connection.

I'm at a loss at what to look at next.

- archie

archiek · Answer

It has been about a month now and the hard drive light now does not stay on solid. Disk access seems to be normal. This has been the case for the last couple of weeks. I noticed the day after thanksgiving that the light was still on solid and then a few days later it was not. Things seem to be running fine right now.

The issue may be solved or has just gone away and decided to leave me alone for now.

:smileyvery-happy:

billw020104 · Answer

Check this thread out.

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_harddrive&message.id=29672

"The newest Mobile drives are moving to using 3.3 volts on the interface lines (from 5 volts on previous models) to reduce power consumption. Systems should be able to properly detect the lower 3.3 volts according to the ATA specification. In your case the system doesn’t seem to be able to properly detect the correct voltage of the mobile drive, that is why it causing the drive activity light to stay on constantly. This is NOT a problem caused by the drive. This is the result of the laptop not being fully ATA compliant in accordance with the power specifications. This will not hurt the drive or the system in any way."

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_harddrive&message.id=30246

My HDD light goes off when I come out of Standby mode but is always on otherwise.

Hope this helps to put your mine at ease. My I8100 is still ticking after 3 years.

--Bill

Windows General

Hard drive light stays on.

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