HD blips red led 1pmnt

[luke]

Recently Sata 160gb HD red led flashes apprx 1 @ mnt.

HD 3m old, 90% unused, otherwise works OK.

AVG free Virous check OK.

Anybody knows the reason?             luke

[legoalex2000]

please type out what your saying thank you.

so, the info you stated:

you have a Sata 160gb drive, only 3 months old.
you've only used 10% of it.
you've done a virus scan of it.

but, the LED is lit up for around a minute.

what is running on the drive? if it's some Limewire/kazaa/bittorrent type program, spyware is involved, and may be using system resources.

or mabye your drive has a bad sector. so a scandisk of the drive and have it check.

Ramos

[luke]

PC Home build
Asus A8N 32 sli deluxe
Bios AMI 64-1009-009999
Chipset nF4-sli x16
AMD 3.5+ (2.20ghz)
Corsair twinx 1024-3200 SDRAM 2x512mb
MSI 6600gt 128 PCI-E
Maxtor sata 160mb
PSU 400w
XP sp2
X45

Re: HD red led blips, flashes once per minute.

No "...

[NicksFXHouse]

Are you talking about the flickering hard drive access LED on the tower? (mine is blue)

..or is this another LED?


If it is the tower LED, flickering every so often is not issue. If you are concerned,.. find, download, install and run FILEMON. Leave the system alone for a bit then check the FILEMON log to see what is being accessed. You may find it normal, especially if you have not turned off such things as Indexing Services and System Restore.

[Fozzer]

Recently Sata 160gb HD red led flashes apprx 1 @ mnt.

HD 3m old, 90% unused, otherwise works OK.

AVG free Virous check OK.

Anybody knows the reason?             luke

Luke, my old Mate...

...you are falling into the dreaded trap of using "Mobile 'phone speak"... ...!

Very difficult to make sense of.... ...!

LOL...!

Paul...An enthusiastic user of the Queens English...LOL...!
(With the occasional typographical error)...?

[Scorpiоn]

'Tis no use Foz.  Usually these types will actually defend their use of incoherent English. Go figure.

[luke]

My apologies for causing havoc. Will try harder.

N.Nick sorry, I thought they all had red LED.

Suddenly my PC,s "flickering hard drive access LED on the tower" started to Flicker, Flash, or Blip continously, now once every SECOND with the PC or HD idle, doing nothing.

Fs9 and most things work, but just noticed I can not get in to the desktop properties and cannot open any of the Control Panel items.

No Viruses were found by AVGfree.

I run your FILEMON but I am not experienced enough to know what is what.      

"Starter" shows all these running:-                     luke

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[beaky]

Best way to solve that problem is to not look at the light.
;D
Seriously, if you have a system restore point, go back!!!
It's true that the trouble with filemon or even good ol Task Manager is that one doesn't always know what's required and what's not.

But... if you go Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools> Services, that will show you an application list with more info on what they are and what they do. There's also a column for "Automatic", "Manual", etc.
In general, you can safely stop any process shown as "manual" without any repercussions... but the other stuff may take some research.
That's why I'd recommend a system restore...

OR...
Your HD could be shot.
Maybe before you do anythin g, you should backup to disc.  :-X

[congo]

The services are mostly MS background tasks, though some third party software is run as a service or services. Most of the time they are not though.

There are guides as to what you can and cannot safely disable in services.

Back on topic though, Luke, it's sounds bad mate. I'd be backing up fast.

[NicksFXHouse]

My apologies for causing havoc. Will try harder.

N.Nick sorry, I thought they all had red LED.

Suddenly my PC,s "flickering hard drive access LED on the tower" started to Flicker, Flash, or Blip continously, now once every SECOND with the PC or HD idle, doing nothing.

Fs9 and most things work, but just noticed I can not get in to the desktop properties and cannot open any of the Control Panel items.

No Viruses were found by AVGfree.

I run your FILEMON but I am not experienced enough to know what is what.      

"Starter" shows all these running:-                     luke

The fact you cannot access properties in Windows is a concern. Congo is correct in advising a data backup but be aware if you are infected you can inadvertantly transfer a virus or spyware in the backup. Before going through all that we can try a few things...

If you do not what to look for in filemon then it will be difficult to sort out. From the log screen you posted I noticed you are running Windows Defender. It is possible that software is doing some type of update and check. It is also possible you are seeing system restore or another Windows program doing maintenance.


Try this:

Copy the following exactly as it is displayed:

rundll32 advapi32,ProcessIdleTasks


...click, start, run and paste the line above in the run box. Click OK and let the disk activity settle down. See if the HDD light goes out after about 2 minutes.

If so, reboot and check the system again


...also, when was the last time you defragmentented the disk and cleaned out all the temp files?

If it has been a long time, do the following:

Make sure Windows Hidden Files and Folders is Disabled from: Tools\Folder Optins\View tab: Bullet in "Show Hidden Files and Folders" hit apply

1.
Browse to
C:\Documents and Settings (YOUR ACCOUNT NAME)\Local Settings\Temp

Delete everything in that folder

2.
Browse to:
C:\WINDOWS\Temp

Delete everything in that folder

3.
Browse to:
C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch

Delete everything in that folder

4.

Copy and paste the following in the Run Box again

rundll32 advapi32,ProcessIdleTasks


Hit OK and reboot twice

Run your disk defragmenter


See if the disk activity ceases.

If you are still getting strange disk activity, download and install AdAware and run the full system scan.

Spybot Search and Destroy has been compromised by hackers DO NOT USE SPYBOTS ANYMORE


If after all of the above you are still having disk activity and cannot access Windows Properties, I think it is safe to conclude one of the following:

1.
Windows is damaged

2.
You are infected

3.
All of the above

In that case, back up your data to a place where it can be scanned before you put it back into the Windows OS.

Start over with a clean install of Windows. Before reformatting and installing Windows, go to the website of the manufacture of your hard drive. There should be a DOS application available for download and install to a floppy for preparing a disk for Windows installation in DOS. One of the features on that utility disk will be "WRITE ZEROS TO THE DRIVE" or "SECURITY WIPE". You want to run that feature prior to reinstalling Windows to insure there is no virus hanging out in the boot sector of the drive.

Once Windows is reinstalled, do the following and reboot as directed by the programs:

1.
Update/install the motherboard drivers

2.
Update/install the video drivers

3.
Update/install the sound drivers

4.
Install any other drivers needed for your hardware

5.
Install your antivirus software

6.
Go to Windows Update and download and install ALL the critical updates, reboot and return to Windows update and download any critical updates that show up... repeat this process until Windows update says there are no more critical updates. Do not update Windows componets or install any recommended drivers... just install the critical updates.

7.
Install AdAware

Once all of the above is completed, have your antivirus AND AdAware do a full system scan. Once completed THEN run both programs on your data backup.

If all is good, reincorporate your data back into the system.

[congo]

Do not update Windows componets or install any recommended drivers... just install the critical updates.

It's so good to hear that advice!    :D

[Fozzer]

................Spybot Search and Destroy has been compromised by hackers DO NOT USE SPYBOTS ANYMORE........

That's a bit worrying.... ...!

Up to now that's been my most effective method of detecting and removing "Trojan Horses"....!

It has found many nasties that Adaware has missed or overlooked.... ...!

Virus's are detected by my usual Norton and AVG programs.

Paul... ...!

[luke]

Thanks for the advices.
Done all you said to the letter, & scandisked, defraged, scaned but to no avail. In dispare reinstalled winXPsp2.

It boots fast but after the "Welcome" bit, goes to a lighter bleu full screen and hungs for ever.

The Bios shows that Primary & Secondary Ide is NOT detected. Only one CDR drive shows detected.

NO flickering LED though.... !@"%$#?!.

Regarding backups I am almost OK, as this PC's HD was imaged (Ghost) with mine and anything we do is backed up to each other via my cabled network.

This second PC escaped whatever happened.
Is there anything else I could do to save the situation?
before try to boot with my "MaxBlast" floppy to reformat & repartition again?

[NicksFXHouse]

[quote]


It's so good to hear that advice!

[NicksFXHouse]

That's a bit worrying.... ...!

Up to now that's been my most effective method of detecting and removing "Trojan Horses"....!

It has found many nasties that Adaware has missed or overlooked.... ...!

Virus's are detected by my usual Norton and AVG programs.

Paul... ...!

I got that from a very reliable source. I uninstalled it a month ago. AdAware and Windows Defender work just fine