HDD Light always blinking?

kalvnhobbz · 01-25-2004, 12:18 AM

I'm running Fedora Core 1 on an SN41G2 with a maxtor 80gb hard drive. It's got a xp2000+ and 512mb ram...

After I login, even if the computer's completely idle, the hdd light keeps blinking. It's not a fast blinking, but only intermittent - enough to be annoying. When I logout back to the login screen, the blinking stops. Any idea on what might be causing this? Or is this normal?

dalek · 01-25-2004, 12:54 AM

It could be indexing the files. Suposed to make file searches faster, never seen much increase myself.

If you use ext3 or reiser file systems then it may be updating the journals. It does that so that if you crash you don't loose anything.

Go to a term and type in top and watch to see what is running. index thing is usually updatedb but sometimes is done inside GUI if you use KDE.

Someone else may have more ideas.

Later

edit: Can't type worth crap

kalvnhobbz · 01-25-2004, 01:13 PM

I am using ext3 - does it continuously journal, even when nothing's happening? top doesn't list any updatedb, but there are 3 listings of kjournald (i am running kde).

dalek · 01-25-2004, 01:24 PM

That kjournald is likely what is doing the accessing. It does update often. Mine is every few seconds even when I am in bed. I see it in Gkrellm.

It seems to be normal unless you are having other troubles.

Later

kalvnhobbz · 01-25-2004, 01:26 PM

nope, no other problems. just the light blinking every second is a little annoying

dalek · 01-25-2004, 06:41 PM

Would a crashing hard drive make you feel worse.

Drives nowadays are used to this. It is a lot better than having a crash and losing a lot of data. You may can change to ext2. It doesn't access so much.

Later