unusual hdd activity

"Paul in Houston TX" wrote in message
...
dick wrote:
The hdd light on this computer flashes continually about once every
second
even when idling.
I have removed indexing, run in safe mode, run with bios failsafe
settings ,
but it keeps
flashing.

Anyone any ideas why this is happening?

When you run in safe mode(s) are your antiviruses and software firewalls
OFF?


Yes, neither were running.

"pamela" wrote in message
...
On 17:31 15 Feb 2016, dick wrote:

The hdd light on this computer flashes continually about once
every second even when idling.
I have removed indexing, run in safe mode, run with bios
failsafe settings , but it keeps
flashing.

Anyone any ideas why this is happening?


I once had a utility that monitored system resources which made
the HDD light flash like that.

Ccleaner has such a feature, but that was not enabled or running.

Bills' reg mod seems to have done the trick.

"Paul" wrote in message
...
dick wrote:
The hdd light on this computer flashes continually about once every
second even when idling.
I have removed indexing, run in safe mode, run with bios failsafe
settings , but it keeps
flashing.

Anyone any ideas why this is happening?

Unplug the optical drive, then retest ?

The OS could be polling for media.

---//---

Windows identifies the DVD drive as - DVD-RAM Drive


*******
Everyone knows WinXP has a defragmenter.

---/ /---

There are no scheduled tasks.


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/...processmonitor

I tried processmonitor and didn't understand most of what i saw.

Bills reg mod seems to have done the trick.



My enquiry was because the HDD developed 4K of bad sectors
and the replacement has just started to make a muted rattle at start-up
( it sounds like the valves of an engine needing service) and i wondered
if this constant hdd activity was excessive and causing damage.



Paul

"JJ" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 12:59:07 -0500, Paul wrote:

Unplug the optical drive, then retest ?

The OS could be polling for media.

If for some reason, a storage device had
a "removable media" rating, it might end
up getting poked as if it was an optical drive.

I concur with this.

The HDD LED indicator on the PC/laptop case is actually connected to all
on-board storage controllers. Be it E/IDE, SCSI, or SATA. Any command
related to any connected storage device's media will trigger the LED.
Except
for floppy drive, storage devices that have removable medium such as
optical
drives, are one of the storage devices that is periodically checked by the
system. This applies to all PCs, and all modern operating systems (those
that are released after CD-ROM drive technology exists).


I had unplugged the DVD drive, it is definitely the hdd.

I also disabled the PATA drives and of course it wouldn't
boot. I didn't know that SATA went through the PATA
connection.

Dick wrote:
"JJ" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 15 Feb 2016 12:59:07 -0500, Paul wrote:
Unplug the optical drive, then retest ?

The OS could be polling for media.

If for some reason, a storage device had
a "removable media" rating, it might end
up getting poked as if it was an optical drive.
I concur with this.

The HDD LED indicator on the PC/laptop case is actually connected to all
on-board storage controllers. Be it E/IDE, SCSI, or SATA. Any command
related to any connected storage device's media will trigger the LED.
Except
for floppy drive, storage devices that have removable medium such as
optical
drives, are one of the storage devices that is periodically checked by the
system. This applies to all PCs, and all modern operating systems (those
that are released after CD-ROM drive technology exists).

I had unplugged the DVD drive, it is definitely the hdd.

I also disabled the PATA drives and of course it wouldn't
boot. I didn't know that SATA went through the PATA
connection.

That's an Intel feature called Compatibility mode.

Up to four SATA ports, are made to look in I/O space
like they're two PATA ribbon cables, running INT14 and
Int15. And that's a mode that Win98 can use (as Win98
doesn't even know they're SATA drives - they look like
PATA). So for the longest while, Intel chipsets continued
to support Win98 or older.

The charade even extends to the BIOS setup screen, where
you can have a SATA motherboard, yet the BIOS screen
makes mention of "Master" and "Slave". Well, the terms
are meaningless, and don't help the function of the
thing one bit. They're bookkeeping labels, and you may
also see the labels in the OS device manager interface.

SATA doesn't have Master and Slave. Instead, it has a
Port Multiplier capability. But few people have the
$100 to buy a Port Multiplier box, so nobody knows about it.
And by itself, the SATA cable supports the one drive.

The original form factor of the PM boxes was like this,
with the computer side on the one-port-side and the
drive fanout on the five-port-side. Silicon Image makes
the Port Multiplier chip. Initially, only certain chips
supported FIS to make Port Multiplier work, and the
better quality adverts, warn about that issue.

http://www.scsi4me.com/zage-d-5saes-...e-adapter.html

And while you might think that 1 to 5 fanout was
some kind of canonical form, the protocol actually
supports a slightly higher number of ports. But
being realistic, at some point it doesn't make
sense to try to run a gazillion drives off
one port. So Silicon Image made the call to
stop at five. And I'm sure that whatever engineering
money they put into making that chip, they never
got their money back. Several companies have marketed
those, including in an internal card format, but they
just didn't take off. The $100 introductory price
put a stop to any chance of them succeeding. The price
would have to be $20 or so, to sell any.

Paul