Why is my Harddrive "LED" constantly blinking?

I have noticed that my Harddrive LED is constantly blinking. I have reformatted, installed WinXP and even with NOTHING open, the LED still flashes on and off every 2 seconds or so. I have tried unplugging all USB and Network devices and it didn't stop. I have no Virus software installed either. Nothing loads on startup except the annoying Messenger but I turn it off and the LED still blinks. Any ideas why?? This is driving me insane.

I can't wait for someone to answer this. I have the same thing on one of my boxes, yet an almost identical box next to it does not do it. Both run XP, both have GF4's, both have Abit Raid boards, both P4, same ram. Really only major difference is the brand of hdd. Blinking one has an IBM GXP120, non-blinking has Maxtor. Could that make a difference?

I've seen the same thing. A lot of times you'll hear the drive access for a split second too. I think it has something to do with caching or something.

is there anything else on the same channel? a cdrom or anything? - also depending on what OS your using ( I think its on all 9x but not on NTs ) turn off auto insert notification on the Optical Disk Drive your using as this maybe the HDD checking sequentially if anything new has been inserted.

ninthebin, I don't know about MagnumR6vet's but both of my boxes are set up with the drives by themselves on the Highpoint Raid controller as IDE-3 and IDE-4, non-Raid. Both boxes run XP Corp. with SP1. One does it and one does not. I just find it weird.

All that hard work for nothing.....

It's normal. Even if the HDD is on a separate controller, the IDE bus may still do it. Some machines don't do it though. I asked about it a long time ago, and someone said something about the IDE bus "polling" the drives. It doesn't affect anything, it's just typical computer behavior. No one is hacking your machine, and your drive is not dying.

It may have to do with programs like Coolmon, samurize or MBM5. It may even be HDD temp monitors (if you have that program).

Well I noticed for the first few days after loading XP it does this kinda like to learn. Then a few days later it doesn't do it and frequently used Apps open slightly faster. It's something about the driver and app Caching. Also if your Using NTFS it trys to make most of it's file contiguous while the system is idle.

I really hope this is a joke thread...

The LED simply shows when your hard drive is being acessed...

Well DUH!! I know it shows HD activity, But my HD shouldn't be showing activity if nothing is running.

mine does not do that...i have the WD SE 80GIG 8MB cache....works ok.....

I really hope this is a joke thread...

The LED simply shows when your hard drive is being acessed...

Click to expand...

thats all well and good when your doing something, but if your sitting idle and it isnt doing its norm flicker every few minutes - but instead near constantly flickering it can be indicating a problem.

Ill tell ya what it is!

Ok, what this is is what is being said, but only partialy, the drive is making a sort of 'list' of whats on the drive. In Win2k and I beleive 9X the program is called FindFast.exe (very annoying and worthless I might add) and what it does is looks over the drive every now and then to see what is there, it helps make things go faster. such as opening programs or when searching for files. As for XP, well its already a bloated operating system so I wouldnt be surprised, as for the name of the program? beats me. As far as different drives areconcerned, its more of chance. sometimes the program gets disabled and you dont even know it.
The second thing is if your HDD is formatted NTFS and you right click on a fiule/folder and select properties. there will be an "advanced" button, there will be a election for "cache/register this folder for faster search times" or something like that...just gotta dig around. If you dont mind it, then dont worry about it

Hope this helps ya'll out or something

*Edit* that NTFS thing only works on NTx or later (obviously)

*Edit*Also, a drive doing this doesnt mean its going bad, going to melt, is being hacked/copied/formated/erased/etc its just another way for M$ to annoy you. your HDD being hacked would be a steady light (like when copying files) and a drive dying would be a nice clicking sound (or something similar). anyways...peace out yo!

1) DO u have index searching on??? If yes then turn the bloody thing off.
2) Is ur drive NTFS - if so, is the compressed button on?? - Same as above...turn it off...
3) Get Norton Disk doctor....scan the drive in surface mode.....i know u will say that norton is crap...but it detected crupted files that my normal scandisk wounld not....

Things to do.

And try emptying the Event logger once in a while.....

Oh and 1 last thing...check ur swap file system...it might me gettings full of useless junk...recommed cleaning it out every week....

I had the same problem running XP where the light would be blinking all the time. I could actually hear the hd being accessed while "nothing" was running. If you go into run type "services.msc" you can edit them. Found the article in MaxPC, here is the link to a website that walks you through the process. After I finished nothing but sweet silence.

1) DO u have index searching on??? If yes then turn the bloody thing off.

Click to expand...

index searching, THATs what I was thinking of (not drive caching for search stuff)

Well, I have tried all of the suggestions and nothing helped. I even took the IDE cable OFF of my CDRom and it didn't stop. I turned off a lot of services, still didn't help. Any more suggestions?

did you check to see what services were running? other than that, you might just have to live with it man

Well, being that it's really not hurting anything, I'm not sure that I'd really worry too much about it.

all three of my previous computers had blinking led lights including my current system while the computer is idle so i see this as normal activity.

now if the computer starts slowing down or having errors, then maybe you should begin to worry and wonder otherwise this is no big deal.

now if each time the led blinks causing a loud noise from your harddrive, that can get quite annoying. then you have no choice but to buy a more quiet harddrive in the future such as Seagates which are extremely quiet.

I think Luciferase was on the right track.

Mine does the same thing. It is common in win98, so I assume it would be in xp. I would rather have cd's start automatically then get rid of a blinking light.

Most likley, your hard disks are sharing a controller with a CDROM. If it bugs you, try turning off auto insert notification by going to - ControlPanel >System >DeviceManager>CD-ROM>Settings>uncheck Auto insertion notification>reboot. At least thats how you get there in win98, shouldn't be to different with xp.