why does my hard disk light flash so often?

Chuzzle

Not sure if it is called a hard disk light lol, but its the light that flashes whenever the computer is doing something. It seems to flash every second or so even when nothing is going on. Is this normal or is there something running in the background that maybe shouldn't be?

closed

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

There's always something going on, this will give you a clue which process(es) it is.

pcombo

The point of the LED is to indicate that there is some sort of activity occurring.

fwor

It will depend a bit on what version of Windows you are running, but if it is ~always~ flashing at least once a second, I'd suspect that something is running that shouldn't be. I can't recall any of my Windows installations bashing the hard disk that much at idle when all of the startup processes have settled down.

Have you tried any malware scans as a precaution, as described in the Stickies at the top of this forum section?

jaydeeuk1

HD Indexing, background virus scan/guard could cause that. Are you connected to a network?

Dave101t

think of it like your brain, its always working wether your thinking or not.
whats irritating is if your processes are all running slowly, if thats the case then disable everything you dont need, if there is no slowdown, dont worry about it.