SOLVED Hard Drive light always on

[Rikki27]

Hi All,

I have just set up a new install of Windows 7 Pro 64bit. I have noted that my hard drive activity light is always on. Apart from this everything on the user side appears to be functioning very well. The MB is a Gigabyte GA-EP45 DS3R with a Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 3.0GHz, 4 GB DDR2.

When I have checked the administrative tools it appears that the two 3TB WD green hard drives that I have in RAID 1 under Windows 7 are running at approx 50% activity. These are showing as 2.8TB capacity (oK). As far as I can tell there are no errors although there is a warning triangle displaying under the Harddrive section of the management console in the right hand panel for each drive. The properties section gives no indication that anything is wrong. I setup this raid using the windows disk management option.

I have the BIOS set to RAID and these drives and the OS SSD show up on boot up with no errors.

In addition to the above I have a second RAID mirror setup under BIOS RAID two older 140 Gb Seagates that were on the system under XP. There have no errors or any other notifications and appear to be working fine.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why my hard drive light might be on continuously?

 

[Core]

Since it is a new installation, could it be the indexing service hammering the drives while building new index?

 

[Rikki27]

Core,

I had thought that given the size of the new discs in the Mirror set being around 2.8 Tb that the system might be engaged in some sort of setup process. I have no experience with drives of this size and how long the process might take so I expect that the light might extinguish eventually I suppose.

I have also filled out the system specifications as suggested.

thanks

Rikki27

 

[Digerati]

I agree, it could be the indexing surfaces and if so, that will settle down once caught up. But it could also be an indication of the new mirrored arrays trying to sync up.

As far as I can tell there are no errors although there is a warning triangle displaying

Well, the warning triangles ARE indicating errors - though I don't know what. Your RAID controller menu might shed some light on that.

How long has the light been on? Hours? Days?

Note some security software, when first installed conducts "full" scans and that can take many hours. Plus, every time you use the computer, these scans, indexing, and syncs are put on hold until YOU go idle.

I would start Task Manager and see if anything there gives a clue.

 

[Rikki27]

Tried turning off indexing but that didn't solve the issue.

PC hasn't been running continuously for more than 3 hrs for last 5 days off and on.

Going to try to dissolve the larger W7 software RAID 1 set back to single discs. Not much data on them so can back up across network.

Smaller original RAID 1 set appears as normal during BIOS checks. This is setup on the motherboard chipset. Will see if I can set the larger discs up as a RAID 1 under this as well. Haven't had enough experience to know if this can or can not be done.

Anyway nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

[Aminifu]

Hi Rikki27,

In addition to resolving the management console warnings, does your system have a CD/DVD drive? If it does and it has the old style interface instead of SATA, then when the OS is periodically polling the drive (to see if it has media in it) this will cause the hard drive activity light to turn on during the poll.

 

[Rikki27]

All,

The disk drive light is on constantly without a flicker and upon checking my 2 x 2.8 Tb disks that I have in Window 7 RAID via disk management I note that the drives are not displaying Synchronising.

I did a search on the web and this article which might indicate a reason,

http://serverfault.com/questions/107636/how-to-view-status-of-software-raid-1-resynching

A lot of useful info in this article.

It would appear that a couple of new large capacity drives will take quite a long time to sync especially if I am switching the PC off without letting the sync process complete.

Hmmm. I'd be happy to read anyones assessment of this.

 

[Rikki27]

Sorry all after reading my post I note a typo - should read [drives are now displaying Synchronising] not "drives are not displaying Synchronising".

 

[Digerati]

3 hours is nothing for a new computer with monster drives. And indexing is a good thing. I say, enable indexing and let it go.

One more thing - are you 100% sure the hard drive's front panel LED wire is properly connected to the motherboard's front panel I/O header? Not reversed, for example?

 

[windowssevenfan]

this happend in mine as well i have windows 7 pro and i have two hds in my pc one western digitle 3 tb and and old 80 gbytes with xp and 2 weeks later the 80 gbytes failed and my hd light was normal agian