hard drive light always on?

[Atropos]

hi jaybird,

I guess your problem did not dissapear til now... ?

Some ideas I got while reading the whole thread:

- Second harddrive is for temp. storage, avi files and swap, right?
I guess it's formatted with FAT32 filesystem? The FAT32 really gets
crapped when files get larger than 1,8 GB. (Yes, the M$ knowledgebase
tells something else, but I've seen a lot of problems with FAT32 and
1,x GB files.)
The swap file should not be in use as you have 1GB of ram.
There are loads of registry tweaks for systems running 1 GB and Win9x.
I had to tell my Win9x only to use 768 MB. No chance booting with 1GB
enabled. (The problme really depends on system. My friend's running Win9x with 1,5 GB RAM absolutely stable. )
There are also tweaks for Win2K running the full 1GB. First I'd tell the
system NOT to swap kernel stuff out (Sorry, don't know the registry hack
right now ). Next thing is telling W2K to use the swap file ONLY when
there's no more space in physical RAM.
(Search for ConservativSwapFileUsage on google.)
Setting this will make sure that swap is used only when needed.

- Next I'd boot a knoppixCD and probe the IDE HDDs.
I guess you already did this using the manufacturers' HDD tools.
I don't rely on these tools completely as they do NOT use the harddrive
usual duty does.

- Last thing I'd try is booting a SuSE Linux install CD. (Could be any Linux
I guess, but I'm very familiar with SuSE Linux and know where to find the
stuff needed ) No install here, just booting the CD to run Memtest86.
A whole run will take ages but really probes the RAM. (Maybe one will
think that damaged RAM will not cause HDD LED to be ON all time, but
damaged RAM can cause ANY problem... ).

If all the above runs fine I'd think of Windows beeing the source for
problems - not the hardware.

Hope this helps you a bit,

Atropos

[jaybird]

Still have the problem.

Drive is NTFS.

Regards,

jaybird

[davd_bob]

You could pull that little black jumber thing with wires comming out of it off the pins labeled HD right. That might turn it off.

[jaybird]

Here is something new to ponder. I walked into my home office this moning and my main work station, the one with the problem, was off.

When I went to work yesterday it was on.

My daughter said that she had been in her room and heard the UPS go off earlier in the day.

When I rebooted it said it couldn't find the boot device!

I rebooted 3 times and reset it back to last known good configuration and it all came back

When I did the final reboot the hdd light was off after windows opened, but as soon as I accessed the Internet the light came on and has stayed on ever since.

Go figure!!!!

Regards,

jaybird

[davd_bob]

are you a ZOMBIE SPAMMER

[jaybird]

Seems to me that we are getting off the subject here but, ok, I'll bite, what the heck is a ZOMBIE SPAMMER? and how does that relate to my hard drive problem?

[InactiveX]

My daughter said that she had been in her room and heard the UPS go off earlier in the day.

You didn't fall for that one, did you? That girl will go far.

are you a ZOMBIE SPAMMER

Seems to me that we are getting off the subject here but, ok, I'll bite, what the heck is a ZOMBIE SPAMMER? and how does that relate to my hard drive problem?

" ZOMBIE SPAMMER "

I have no idea what a zombie spammer is either, but it sounds great.

[Dave Rave]

it's what I suggested first off ages ago.

3. back door program is sending spam email

I'm still going with a background defragger, osa9.exe style file indexer, or trojan spammer

[jaybird]

I hate to sound stupid but since I know so little about how some of these programs work, how could that cause my hard drive light to stay on from the moment of power on, prior to the actual boot-up of the OS?

Regards,

jaybird

[BCN]

hey! why don't you try swapping he pins of the HDD led, which you connect to your mobo, eventhough you might be completely sure you connected it right.... the thing is LED gets ON when you connect it backwords, if you understand what i mean. there is no more problem there, once it happened to me long time ago just try

[jaybird]

Problem SOLVED!!!!

I reread all entries and went back to basics.

I booted into safe mode, ran Spybot, Adaware, hsremove and aboutbuster, did NOT shut down, instead unplugged machine while in safe mode (recommended on several websites), then re-booted and YES!
No more hdd light!

Only hope that this holds true. Also installed WinPatrol.exe. to run at all times (before disabled to MAX ram usage).

Thanks to all.

Regards,

jaybird

[davd_bob]

...ran Spybot, Adaware, hsremove and aboutbuster...

jay,
Did they find anything? What are hsremove and aboutbuster?

[jaybird]

hsremove.exe and aboutbuster.exe remove a form or forms of malware, one of which is called home search assistent (yes, it is misspelled, if you look for it on the net, it doesn't exist, if you try to goto home search assistant, remove, it says it can't find it, nasty huh?).

Any way, did a search, found multiple sites, the above software (free!) and instructions as to how to use it.

Biggest thing, boot into safe mode, use Spybot, Adware, hsremove and aboutbuster and the UNPLUG macine, DO NOT REBOOT!

regards,

jaybird

[davd_bob]

Biggest thing, boot into safe mode, use Spybot, Adware, hsremove and aboutbuster and the UNPLUG macine, DO NOT REBOOT!

Thanks for the info.

BTW, for anyone interested, back in the day(im telling my age again) when 286 systems were still in use extended ram could be used for a really fast ramdisk. Thats if the user was rich and had a whole meg of ram...part of that extra 384K could be used for a really fast virtual disk created in extended ram. If you created one and copied files into that virtual disk, then did a WARM reboot useing exactly the same configuration and same size virtual disk, the files would survive the reboot.
I used that feature many times back then.

They claim they killed the ability with the 386 and newer cpus(My tests proved it no longer worked on my 386SX16) but it sounds like some willy old hackers dug the ability back up and are using it in mal-ware.

geez, i had to save for weeks to afford that extra 512K of ram...

[headseed]

The spyware get reinatalled when you shut your machine down or restart (from registry entries). Safe mode is a good way to get most of them wit hspybot search and destroy. If it can't get them all it will ask you if it can run before windows boots on next reboot.

It isn't perfect but it gets rid of most of them so you can at least use your system and search how to get rid of the rest.

Fully updated versions of the following in safe mode:

Ad-aware
Spybot Seach & Destroy (also update and use theimmunize feature)
Avast! anti-virus full scan

Then I suggest a switch to firefox as a browser, and use msconfig (type it in in 'Run' in the start menu) to check what is loading at startup.

Keep running full scans and removals until everything is gone.

I usually never have to worry on my network, but for family and friends, and its always a nightmare. Ruins my holiday as I sit and "fix" their computers.

Bart's PE Builder XP lets you create and .iso bootable XP OS with ad-aware, ant-virus, etc, all included. All you need is the free Bart's PEbuilder software, a copy of an XP CD, and a few minutes. Booting from the CD to load windows, like knoppix, completely bypasses all the nasties on the hard drive, and then you can run the utils to remove them, because they haven't had a chance to get loaded and running.

[Billl]

Seems to me that we are getting off the subject here but, ok, I'll bite, what the heck is a ZOMBIE SPAMMER? and how does that relate to my hard drive problem?

It's when some "d00d 0wnZ y3r put3r caus3 y3r a lam3r"

Or the english translation is: when you don't have a firewall and you use Winbloze! Some worm finds you and installs a trojan and you are Zombie'd and spam others.


Billl