HDD activity light always on

[alphaace]

Hi Everyone,

I've recently noticed that if I leave my computer on for a while, the HDD light goes on and stays on (doesn't flicker). If I reboot, it goes back to normal for a few hours. However, invariably, it just lights up and stays on. To test it, I tried rebooting my computer and not turning on any programs (no thunderbird, firefox, nothing,)...still happened.

Is there a way I can check what's it doing? It can't be healthy if it's writing/reading from the hdd all the time. Also, this is somewhat of a new development, it didn't always use to do this.

Thanks for your help!

[djohnston]

Does it happen at certain times? There are a few system tasks that run on schedule (or not) that could be causing the disk activity. Use top or htop to see what is running during the activity.

[menotu]

Does it happen at certain times? There are a few system tasks that run on schedule (or not) that could be causing the disk activity. Use top or htop to see what is running during the activity.

+1


htop can be very useful. The Fx function keys can be helpful i.e. F6 lets you choose to sort by CPU or by MEM etc...........

The F9 function key can be useful as it allows that selected process/service to be "killed" (be careful with what you kill though   )

F3 allows a search to be done.

And F1 of course.

htop is a nice little tool.

[alphaace]

Hi,

Nope, it just turns on and stays on, for days at a time if I leave it. I tried killing some stuff in htop but without knowing what to look for it's guess and check. I ran top -n 1 -b> running.txt, perhaps someone knows something?

I tried pasting the output but it was too large. I uploaded it here:
www.alrig.com/pclos/top_output.txt

Any ideas?

Addendum: Restarting X doesn't seem to help as the hard drive is still on even during the login screen. Thus I suspect it's something lower level...

[menotu]

What happens if you create a new user account and login to that - does the same behaviour occur (may need to do a full reboot and login directly to the new account so you can be sure the other "old" account isn't "active")

[AS]

Hi,

Nope, it just turns on and stays on, for days at a time if I leave it. I tried killing some stuff in htop but without knowing what to look for it's guess and check. I ran top -n 1 -b> running.txt, perhaps someone knows something?

I tried pasting the output but it was too large. I uploaded it here:
www.alrig.com/pclos/top_output.txt

Any ideas?

Cpu(s):  1.2%us,  1.2%sy,  1.5%ni, 95.3%id,  0.9%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si,  0.0%st

This show that there is no HD heavy activity, usually when some apps works on data, the kernel need to wait for data to be available ... and that value rise up quite a lot ... whatever it is your issue it seems not directly related to the running processes ...

[alphaace]

Hi,

So after some testing, I think my hard drive is failing. The HDD light comes on even after I made a new account. It even stayed on after a restart. The only way I can get it back to normal behavior is if I do a full power off and boot up from scratch. What's more, is that sometimes during bootup it tells me that ata 1 is not responding. So I think it's on it's way to the grave.

I bought a new hard drive from ebay ($8 bucks - for 80 Gig) and want to make it as simple a migration as possible. Luckily, my home directory is on a separate disk. How do I transfer everything over thats in /? Is there a way I can save everything I've installed via synaptic and have it reinstall automatically? For instance, I want thunderbird to pick up my current .thunderbird file /home, etc, etc...

Thank you for your help!

[djohnston]

alphaace,

Have you tried replacing the drive cable? It could be that it's faulty. I don't know what drive tests you've run, but you could install smartdisk utilities and see what is reported about the drive.

If you are convinced the drive needs replacing, then replace it with the one you've bought. Ordinarily, I would say use dd to replicate the root drive. But, if it's failing, you are liable to get erratic results. So, here's what you can do. Download this script Old-Polack wrote which catalogs the packages you have added after PCLinuxOS was installed. Make the file executable, then run it in a terminal by doing:

sh find_installed_apps.sh

It will create a text file named installed-packages.txt which will have a list of the extra packages you installed. Keep both files in your home directory. Leave the disk with your home directory where it is. Replace the old root drive with the new one and make sure the jumpers on the drive are correct. Boot the PC from the latest PCLinuxOS live CD. Wipe all partitions off the newly installed drive, then reboot from the CD again. Install the OS and repartition the drive to your liking. During the installation, designate your previous home drive to be mounted as /home, but DO NOT format the disk with your home directory.

After you have reinstalled PCLinuxOS, immediately do a full update. Follow any instructions given after the update. You can then use the list of your previously installed programs to reinstall them.

If you want to be sure you have a safe backup of all the settings stored in your current home directory, such as .mozilla and .thunderbird folders, do this before you swap any drives. Create a folder in your home directory and name it Backups or Settings or Hidden or anything you like. Set the file browser to show all files and folders. Copy all the hidden files and folders to your newly created folder. Alternatively, you can copy all those hidden files and folders to an external drive, like a USB thumb drive. It never hurts to have backups.

If you have another computer, you could mount your old hard drive there to do further tests. It may be that you just have a faulty cable. Or it may be that your drive is failing, as you believe.

EDIT: If it were me, I would replace the hard drive cable at the same time the new drive is installed.

[alphaace]

Hi Everyone,

Ok, so I got the replacement hard drive and surprisingly found a sealed ATA cable in my closet and replaced both. The hdd activity light is now out and it seems to have fixed the problem.

However, the concern now is when I go to GSmartCojntrol and try to do the test, it stops right at the beginning with the message "Test Result: Completed with Read Failure" -- not quite sure what that means as the hard drive is clearly working.

Here is the self test log:

Complete selective self-test log:

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

[djohnston]

Can't confirm. It's working here on my SATA drives.

[alphaace]

Ok, new hard drive, same light. So I don't think it's a hard drive problem or a cable problem?

Anything else that it might be? This is starting to get me worried... :-(