Hard drive led showing constant activity when not in use

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opera · #1 Post by **opera** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:16 am

Hello everyone,

I recently bought a new harddrive for my R40 laptop and most things seem to working just fine. However, when the laptop is just sitting there doing nothing (even at the login-screen), the led showing hard drive activity is glowing constantly. When doing something requiring the hard drive to work, it begins to flicker as it should, but when it's done the led stops flickering for a moment, then begins to glow constantly again. I've tried reformating both the old drive and the new drive in order for them to be exactly the same software-wise (I'm running Ubuntu 6.06) , but the new drive is still showing the same symptoms.

The old drive is a "Hitachi Travelstar 20GB 4200rpm ata" whereas the new drive is a "Seagate Momentus 60GB 5400rpm ata"...

I would greatly appreciate any advice you might have for me.

Davie · #2 Post by **Davie** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:57 am

Hi,

it sounds like a process is running constantly in the background.

Check task manager and sort the processes by %, what is the most usage?

Also, do the usual spyware / malware / AV scans to make sure nothing malicious is happening.

Failing that, put your old HD back in, does it still happen?

Upgrade latest controller firmware from IBM / Lenovo.

opera · #3 Post by **opera** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 11:32 am

well, as i said, both the drives are formatted with the same OS (and nothing have been done to any of them except booting on the hard drive), so it's exactly the same software on both of them. The new drive is behaving like i described earlier while the old one isn't.

sco1984 · #4 Post by **sco1984** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 12:48 am

Remove the new hdd and fix it again with extra caution.

Or > Update system BIOS . If still it flashing then it might be due
to compatibility issue. Not a error . Sometimes it happens. Or check
if the new hdd making too noise ..The new hdd is of which vendor?

opera · #5 Post by **opera** » Sat Jul 01, 2006 5:22 am

The disk has been put in and out several times so if it was a matter of bad contact between the hard drive and the computer I'm sure it would have been sorted out by now.

Where can i get hold of the new BIOS-version, end furthermore, how can I install it without a floppy drive at hand?

The vendor is Seagate (Seagate Momentus 60GB 5400rpm ata).

opera · #6 Post by **opera** » Fri Jul 21, 2006 3:57 pm

I finally swapped the SEAGATE MOMENTUS 5400.2 60GB 5400RPM 2.5# ATA/100 for a HITACHI TRAVELSTAR 5K100 60GB 2.5# 5400RPM ATA/100 - the problem is no more. This might be a good pointer for anyone looking for a hard drive upgrade for the Thinkpad R40

Hard drive led showing constant activity when not in use

Hard drive led showing constant activity when not in use

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