My hard drive won't stop running

[Greg I.]

i've been searching for weeks but haven't found anything to fix the
problem. all of a sudden, out of the blue, the main hard drive light
just kept staying on. i have to assume it does mean that the hard
drive is running. the computer's performance has been effected, too,
it seems to run slower, like the hard drive is running something.

The drive is a QUANTUM FIREBALL lct08 17 GB. The slave drive is a
maxtor 40 gb drive. i think the slave is fine, since if i set the
power options to turn off hard drives when inactive after a certain
time, the slave goes off, but the drive light stays on and seems like
is still running.

i've tried...
virus scans
defragmenter
scandisk
used maxtor/quantum hard drive util to verify that the drive is
physically fine.
reinstalled windows98
used spybot
fiddled with a clean boot or safe mode
downloaded various process monitors - showed the cpu wasn't being used
though
...........and many more things

if i boot to dos mode, the hard drive light stays solid for awhile and
usually will stop for a little while. And i can't even find any files
on the hard drive that seem to be updating.

i am clueless. is this a hardware or software issue. anybody know?

 

[Amishman35]

Sounds like your HD has a bad sector. I made a lot of coasters with my CD-R
drive at 2x using a bad hard drive.

Though I wouldn't know why Scandisk didn't detect it?

 

[Rod Speed]

i've been searching for weeks but haven't found anything
to fix the problem. all of a sudden, out of the blue, the
main hard drive light just kept staying on. i have to
assume it does mean that the hard drive is running.
Probably.

the computer's performance has been
effected, too, it seems to run slower,
like the hard drive is running something.

Could be retrying on bads.

Can be nothing do with the hard drive too. I had one
system that would do that randomly and it turned out
to be an intermittent short to case with the motherboard.
Proven to be that when it will run forever with the
motherboard loose on the desktop.

The drive is a QUANTUM FIREBALL lct08 17 GB.
The slave drive is a maxtor 40 gb drive. i think the
slave is fine, since if i set the power options to turn
off hard drives when inactive after a certain time,
the slave goes off, but the drive light stays on
and seems like is still running.

i've tried...
virus scans
defragmenter
scandisk
used maxtor/quantum hard drive util to verify that the drive is
physically fine.
reinstalled windows98
used spybot
fiddled with a clean boot or safe mode
downloaded various process monitors -
showed the cpu wasn't being used though
..........and many more things

See what HDD Health has to say about the SMART status.

if i boot to dos mode, the hard drive light stays solid for
awhile and usually will stop for a little while. And i can't
even find any files on the hard drive that seem to be updating.

What happens if you pause the boot, enter the bios.
Is the hard drive light on all the time in that situation ?

i am clueless. is this a hardware
or software issue. anybody know?

Much more likely to be a hardware problem.

 

[Papa]

Does your HD keep running constantly in Safe Mode? If not, your HD is
probably OK.

 

[Greg I.]

I tried scandisk AND a Maxtor/Quantum software program that checks the
drives. Nothing bad was found.

 

[Greg I.]

I believe the Drive still runs in Safe Mode. I have to doublecheck it.
The light from the drive comes on solid green as soon as the computer
is turned on. I really can't hear if its running though. I will look
further. Thanks