hello all

has ne 1 ever experienced problems with hd activity leds, for some reason mine stqays on constant. any ideas. ive checked to see if it was gronding ne where but it isnt

Usually when a hd LED is constantly on, the IDE cable is bakwards, and wouldnt boot the hd anyway, or theres a program (virus??) thats constantly accessing the hd. Those are the only two reason I can think of at this time..

the ide cable is definatly the correct way round, coz ive been using it like this for about a month now, and if it was a program constantly using the hd, would the light stay constant during startup?

sure sounds like an IDE cable is plugged in backwards..

but you might also want to check if the IDE led it plugged into the right header.

well if it is plugged in the wrong way, i damned if i can explain how its been functioning as a hard drive for months

Usually the HD header displays activity for all the hd's plugged it. Other than that, I havent a clue whats going on....

The wrong header is more likely. If it was on backwards it shouldn't light up at all. Did this start after the comp had been running for a while or after you were doing something to it or a new build?

ROFL I think you got a Bootsector Virus. If so, then it REALLY sucks to be you. Only way to get rid is to throw it away.

Ouch. I hope he doesnt have that virus..thats just a plain mean virus..

Yeah. I got one on an old old old old old 320mb IBM and all I could do was throw it away.

What is a boot sector virus?
What it does

A boot sector virus infects or substitutes its own code for either the DOS boot sector or the Master Boot Record (MBR). The MBR is small program that runs every time the computer starts up. It controls the boot sequence and determines which partition the computer boots from. The MBR generally resides on the first sector of the hard disk.

Since the MBR executes every time a computer is started, a boot sector virus is extremely dangerous. Once the boot code on the drive is infected, the virus will be loaded into memory on every startup. From memory the boot virus can spread to every disk that the system reads.

Symptoms

A boot sector virus can cause a variety of boot or data retrieval problems. In some cases, data disappears from entire partitions. In other cases, the computer suddenly becomes unstable. A common problem is failure to start up or to find the hard drive.

How it spreads

A boot sector virus is usually spread by infected floppy disks. In the past, these were usually bootable disks, but this is no longer the case. A floppy disk does not need to be bootable to transmit the virus. Any disk can cause infection if it is in the drive when the computer boots up. The virus can also be spread across networks from file downloads and from e-mail file attachments. In most cases, all write-enabled floppies used on an infected PC will themselves pick up the boot sector virus.

In the past, setting the computer to boot first from the C:\ drive and then the A:\ drive was a reasonable precaution against boot sector viruses. This is no longer the case. Viruses are now more dangerous and spread much more easily.

Some CMOS setups can be configured to prevent writing to the boot sector of the hard drive. This may be of some use against boot sector viruses. However, if you need to reinstall or upgrade the operating system, you will have to change the setting back to make the MBR writable again.

For more information on boot sector viruses and viruses in general, see:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgrou...omp.virus.html

Precautions and damage control

Prevention is usually a matter of vigilance and avoiding contact with unknown disks. The following suggestions will help keep your systems and data safe:

Install virus detection software on your computer. In general, anti-virus programs do two things:

Scan for and remove viruses in files on disks.
Monitor the operation of your computer for virus-like activity. This can be either known actions of specific viruses or general suspicious activity.

Most anti-virus packages contain routines that can perform both tasks. A good virus protection software package is Norton AntiVirus.

Back up your files, so that you can restore them if a virus damages them.

Note: If you back up a file that is already infected with a virus, you can re-infect your system by restoring files from the backup copies. Check your backup files with virus scanning software before using them.

Keep your original application and system disks locked (write-protected). This will prevent the virus from spreading to your original disks.

If you must insert one of your application floppy disks into an unknown computer, lock it first. Unlock your application disk only after verifying that the computer is free of viruses.

Obtain public-domain software from reputable sources. Don't download software directly to a hard disk. Rather, save it to a floppy disk, lock the floppy disk, and check it thoroughly using reputable virus detection software. Don't copy it to your hard disk until you know it is safe. This can also help protect you from Trojan horse programs.

Quarantine any infected computer. If you discover that a computer is infected with a virus, immediately isolate it from other computers. In other words, disconnect it from any network it is on. Don't allow anyone to copy or move files from it until the entire system has been reliably disinfected.

does your cd rom work? how many drives do you have hooked up?

wouldnt a virus guard detect it???

ive got the following set up

Primary Master = Seagate 40GB
Primary Slave = None
Secondary Master = DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
Secondary Slave = Seagate 20GB
i built the rig months ago but the light problem started about a month ago

ne ideas???

its really starting to pi$$ me off now

My old AOpen board would light the HDD LED continously if the LED was plugged into the header backward.

man, freakin old thread. And if the LED is backwards, it shouldn't light at all, diodes are "one direction only"

good thing you put "one direction only" in quotes, cuz that's not always true....I've got some LEDs that will light up either way. The only way I found out I had a couple of them hooked up backwards is when they blew out after <12 hours of use.

dman this is an old thread, it turned out 2 be a faulty rounded ide cable, probably grounding somewhere, thanks 4 the help though

Quote: Originally Posted by jcarkeys man, freakin old thread. And if the LED is backwards, it shouldn't light at all, diodes are "one direction only"

"Oops, I did it again!".... Damn..... and I was doing so well with avoiding old posts.

Even though a conventional diode (non-bidierctional) is one way you can build the circuit to detect the polarity and give notice if desired. My AOpen AX45-8XN will light any LED continously which isn't connected properly... not a bad feature... keeps 'em from burning out.

Oh ...and by the way - the cable-in-backwards theory, that applies only to floppy drives - not hard drives.

Quote: Originally Posted by chiquita ROFL I think you got a Bootsector Virus. If so, then it REALLY sucks to be you. Only way to get rid is to throw it away.

Actually that's not quite true. There is software out there that will write zeros to the entire drive (including the mbr). It's called a low level format. You run it from a floppy so the mbr never loads. This would fix said virus.

When you do this, sometimes, depending on what operating system you install, you will need to use another program afterwards to create a very minimal partition table before you can format with the os install. For example windows will do it on it's own, but if you try to partition with a linux install it won't recognize the drive as usable until you setup the drive with another program.

Generally you can get these programs from your hard drive manufacturer. Western digital has a program called DLG Diagnostic for writing zeros to the drive, and another called Data Lifeguard Tools for repartitioning afterwards.