HDD Light stays on constantly

[Jman13]

I have an XP 1700+ (currently @ 1506), on a Soyo Dragon Plus, Antec sx1040b case. I have the HDD light connector properly connected to the mobo, and it worked just fine when I had just my Maxtor 20GB and my Seagate 6.5GB drive in there. However, after adding my new 80GB Seagate Barracuda IV, the HDD light stays on constantly. I thought I might have bumped the light connection to the motherboard, but I opened up my case today, and it was still on there fine. I tried securing it further, but no dice. Odd, because the light was functioning just fine before adding the new drive. It's obviously not a big deal...all the drives work just fine (and the new drive is nearly twice as fast as my Maxtor)...but it's kind of annoying. The complete rig is in the link in my sig. Any way to fix this?

IDE device config is as follows: Primary Master: Maxtor 20GB (boot drive), Primary Slave: Seagate 80GB (page file). Secondary Master: Ricoh CD-RW, Secondary Slave: Pioneer DVD-ROM. Tertiary Master: Seagate 6.5 GB, Tertiary Slave: Zip 100.

Yeah, I know the two big drives should probably be on different channels, as well as the CD-RW and DVD, but they work just fine the way they are (speed-wise), and it's much more convenient to put them this way due to the layout of the drives in the case.

 

[Jman13]

bumpitty-bump

 

[mastertech01]

Does the light stay on if the new drive is the only one on the cable?

 

[Jman13]

Haven't tried...but I'm not going to, since I don't have another ATA-66 cable, and I really don't see the need in buying one.

 

[baldy]

here is a tip, take it for what it's worth.

make the new drive your master for the OS, it will help with the speed.

configure your setup as follows.

seagate>pri master
DVD rom>pri slave
then for the secondary ide put the maxtor and the burner, whatever order you want.

leave the rest 'as is'.

it may take some rearrangement of drives (I solved my problems by getting longer ide ribbons, went for the wrapped ones this time around, better air flow)

anyway, by configuring this way you can now do 'burns on the fly' without problems whatsoever, and I like the ability to do this all the time without wondering if it will kick out a coaster. I know you can do a 'image to the harddrive' first, but I prefer not to, and everything else works just fine too.

just a thought.

baldy

 

[Jman13]

I'd love to do that, but I'm not going to transfer the drive to be the OS master...it's just too much work. To image my drive with Ghost, it'd take about 15 CDs, and I really don't want to do a format/reinstall right now...especially since my machine is running so well and stable. I do have the page file on the faster 80GB drive, in order to speed up those sort of writes. The machine is very snappy as it is right now, since the Maxtor is not an extremely slow drive...just not all that fast either.

The DVD-CD/RW connection isn't a problem, as I have been able to burn on the fly without any problems whatsoever. I only have a 6x CD-R, so it's not a problem. If I get a 24x CD-R, I'd likely switch it to it's own channel. Plus, the way the drives are situated, it's a good 15 inches between the HD cage and the CD drives at the top of the case.

If I need to do a format/reinstall, I'd likely put the 80GB as the main drive, but hopefully I won't need to do that any time in the near future.

 

[geekender]

Have you checked to make sure that the HDD LED is correctly installed? It is easy....especially if one has come off...to mix up the + and - on them. With some motherboards the light will not come on at all, but with a few I have seen them stay on constantly.

 

[Jman13]

Yes. Like I said in the OP, the light was installed correctly, and working...added the new HD, didn't change the LED hookup to the mobo, and now it's on all the time. Oh well...I guess I'll just live with it on all the time. Not a big deal.

Jman

 

[corkyg]

The HDD LED also lights up when other IDE devices on the same controller are doing something. I would say it is caused by the PageFile being active on the slave HDD. To check that, fix the size of the pagefile by making the max and min the same. Then it is no longer always changing itself.

 

[WarCon]

Is there alot of data on the 80gig? Didn't you just get it? Why can't you just do a drive to drive copy in ghost? Or even using Maxblast. Then your 80gig can be your Master drive.

Warning don't boot up with two drives both having windows on it and then think you can just delete the other drive. Windows is stupid that way. It will delete stuff from your primary, even though your only working on the secondary.

Thats kind of wierd about the LED staying on. You might try the copying to the new drive and then remove the 20gig and see if the LED stays on still.

Before you do the copy though, make sure you switch your swap file.

 

[Jman13]

<< The HDD LED also lights up when other IDE devices on the same controller are doing something. I would say it is caused by the PageFile being active on the slave HDD. To check that, fix the size of the pagefile by making the max and min the same. Then it is no longer always changing itself. >>



Already done...I always keep it that way. I might try doing a drive copy to the new drive, but I'm not sure yet. Thanks anyway, everyone...I don't think I'm really going to worry about it anymore.