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[soms]

Hi all, recently upgraded the PC with a new mobo, CPU, RAM, gfx card, hard drive and lightscribe DVD-RW...

The new HDD and DVD-RW are SATA (running in IDE mode) and work fine.

I also had an existing IDE DVD-RW drive which I have just reattached to the motherboards single IDE connector. Again it works fine in Windows and so on but something that is niggling me is that drive acces on the IDE DVD-RW makes the HDD LED come on. The actions of the DVD-RW activity light and the HDD LED are identical when simply browsing a disc etc which I think clearly cannot be the HDD.

Obviously the LED is mobo/BIOS controlled. I am going to check if the BIOS has it set correctly as a CD/DVD drive (auto settings atm). My SATA drive doesn't do this (make the LED come on).

Just wondered if anyone else had such an odd issue and any tips on how to resolve it?

[oldfogy]

Ever since my original PC was replaced into another case unit the HDD light never went out, so I disconnected it.

>> that drive acces on the IDE DVD-RW makes the HDD LED come on.

Well it is using the HDD in some form or other to be able to transfer the information you are seeing, because the OS is on the drive.

[guest]

The "HDD LED" is a bit misleading really. What the LED usually indicates is activity on the IDE bus, so it usually shows both hard disk and optical disk accesses. In your case it only shows accesses to the old IDE DVD-RW.

There should be a jumper on the motherboard which does the same for SATA I would have thought?

[soms]

Thanks for the replies.

Something to clarify on my original reply is that is does show activity for SATA HDD but not for the SATA DVD-RW, but of which are running in IDE mode (so no SATA controller drivers required for Windows to work).

Anyway, I am starting to wonder if it is down to the induvidual drive itself as experience suggests (with all respecy to Rizlas post) that whilst the HDD LED is for the IDE bus traditionally, in most cases it doesn't replicate CD/DVD drive activity, in other words, the computer knows the difference between a HDD and an optical drive. The drive is on auto settings in the BIOS, with no option to change this to any form of optical drive.

@OF
The LED being on all the time may have been the connector was connected the wrong way round, in which case it would have stayed on and perhaps have turned off in the case of activity. Whilst I agree that the LED not working properly is hardly the end of the world, I am one of those people who can get a little particular about how things work or should work.

[oldfogy]

1. The LED being on all the time may have been the connector was connected the wrong way round,

2. in which case it would have stayed on and perhaps have turned off in the case of activity.

3. I am one of those people who can get a little particular about how things work or should work.

1. I can't remember now whether I checked them, but probably did.

2. It just stayed permanently on, but with two whopping great blue strip lights down the front of the PC plus the fans to keep all the HDDs cool, I knew it was powered up. 

3. I know how you feel, I think if something is there then it should be working.
(A bit like tomorrows task, not that I ever use it, but the card reader slots/drives on the front of the PC have disappeared from in My Computer/Explorer, so it's a side off job)
"just in-case I ever want to use them in the future" Probably just a lose connection.

[soms]

3. I know how you feel, I think if something is there then it should be working.
(A bit like tomorrows task, not that I ever use it, but the card reader slots/drives on the front of the PC have disappeared from in My Computer/Explorer, so it's a side off job)
"just in-case I ever want to use them in the future" Probably just a lose connection.

Hmm, I have never had the joy of an internal card reader but I believe they are powered USB devices which use a floppy power connector and may connect to a motherboard USB header. Probably the best place to start when you next delve inside

[mr_chris]

LED's don't work at all if you get the cable on the wrong way round - it doesn't reverse their on/off behaviour.

Depends on the motherboard/BIOS - some seem to differentiate between hard drives and non-hard drives, and only put the light on when there's a HDD access. Some even take into account traffic on the SATA bus too.

What's the make and model of your motherboard?

[oldfogy]

What's the make and model of your motherboard?

I'll leave this alone as it's not my thread, plus with 5 HDD which is a combination of SATA and IDE, I doubt if I would ever get to the bottom of it.

******************************

(A bit like tomorrows task, not that I ever use it, but the card reader slots/drives on the front of the PC have disappeared from in My Computer/Explorer, so it's a side off job)

"just in-case I ever want to use them in the future" Probably just a lose connection.

Well the side came off and I had a "Prod and a Poke, a Push and a Pull"
But still nothing.

So, I decided to have another "Prod, Poke,  Push and Pull"
Instead of just "jiggling" the cables about, I unplugged them then replaced them.
With it being a multi faced front with lots of other things on it it was not clear which connection was which, so I did the same to all of them.
Only this time a bit lot harder, and I now have the card reader working again. 


All I need now is something to put into it.