Hard drive LED stays lit

[LewB]

Can anyone suggest why my hard drive LED remains contanstantly red when
there is nothing running except XP Pro (Service Pack 2 with all Security
patches) itself? I have indexing disabled on all drives. Task Manager shows
zero or no CPU usage, but the LED stays red. And when I recently
re-installed XP, the LED behaved properly for a short while.

Spyware scans show OK, as well as complete virus scans (McAffee v10.0) of
all drives.

I'm somewhat experienced, but this has had me puzzled for a very long time.
Any ideas appreciated. Thanks.

- Lew

 

[Paul Johnson]

Can anyone suggest why my hard drive LED remains contanstantly red when
there is nothing running except XP Pro (Service Pack 2 with all Security
patches) itself? I have indexing disabled on all drives. Task Manager
shows zero or no CPU usage, but the LED stays red. And when I recently
re-installed XP, the LED behaved properly for a short while.

Spyware scans show OK, as well as complete virus scans (McAffee v10.0) of
all drives.

You might check and make sure the HD LED is connected to the correct pair of
jumper prongs on the motherboard. If it is, I'm thinking either bad disk
controller or a disk going bad, or more likely a virus. McAffee is among
the most expensive, least effective virus scanners around. A great
alternative that actually works is free for home use and cheaper than
McAffee or Norton for businesses is available. It's called AVG and can be
downloaded at http://free.grisoft.com/ .