Disc drive indicator light... is this normal?

Hi:
I just got a Vaio NW. So far I am loving it, as well as loving Windows 7. The one question I have is, is it normal for the disc drive indicator light to continuously flicker/flash? The programs I have running are Google Chrome, and Norton 2010 Internet Security.
Thanks so much!!

 

Depends what the laptop is doing, open task manager and have a look to see what else is running.

 

Background indexing service, background defragmenting, background antivirus scans (whenever there's a definition update) -- there's a whole lot of stuff going on that uses the disk and doesn't present a Window.

 

Thanks so much for the replies!

 

The task manager in Win7 is really good at answering this question, especially with the enhancements to the resource monitor built into it. Take a look at my guide on defraging boot files in Win7 for an example of how to isolate and view the disk activity associated with a specific task. Once you see which task is doing the IO, you can actually see what it is reading and writing. Link to the guide is in my signature line below.

Gary

BTW are you in Cincinnati?

 

It's most likely to be an indexing service or system restore.
Both services run rampant in W7 after W7 starts up. Then they cool down, about an hour after starting.

I personally find system restore useless (it seems to cause more problems than fix with me...), so I just turn that off. Indexing 'can't' be turned off in W7, though you can limit its activties to a certain directories. So basically, yeah, you can make your machine flicker the HDD light less often.

 

I doubt it is either of those.

First, indexing is only resource intensive when it is first put into place when it needs to index everything in its established scope. After that it only kicks in when something within that same scope is changed. It monitors the addition, deletion or change in files in that scope. If there is no such activity, it does nothing. Now, as you correctly pointed out, if the indexing scope is not set up properly it can reek havoc on the disk activity light.

Second, re: system restore. It too, only runs on demand. So unless there was some event requiring a system restore point being set, I doubt if it is the culprit either. And to your assertion that system restore causing more problems than it fixes, do you have any specifics to back that up? These forums are rife with examples of where system restore has saved folks butts. It is probably one of the best features Microsoft ever introduced into any OS.

But the real answer to the OP is that they need to find out what is hitting the disk light, not what might be. And there is only one way to do that... instrumentaion/measurement. We can all speculate for hours on possible causes. But until the OP actually looks to see, using the task explorer with its resource monitor or Process Explorer from Sysinternals, we are all just shooting in the dark.

Gary

 

Hmm... Then the first (and easiest) step would be checking the task manager with admin privleges (ie, run as admin). Go to Processes and see what is using the CPU alot AND using a decent amount of Memory. Though you might wanna check up here before trying to end it; you can risk it though you may get a system crash and need to restart windows...
If you are using the factory installed W7, then you might wanna check out how the VAIO Media Analyzer settings are set-out. They could be doing intensive stuff in the background after you moved your songs, videos, or pictures to a directory that is monitored.

Now... the system restore issues. Yep - more problems than it fixes for me. Especially with what I do; I buy a lot of software for a personal hobby (Photoshop CS3 is a prime example). I once used System Restore in XP and it messed up the licensing info with it - always saying your license is invalid after a system restore. So I tried undoing it and it did NOT go back to the state it originally was - message kept popping up (and no, I don't download warez; learnt my lesson a few years back). I phoned up Adobe and they said they can't do anything about it. Basically means I needed to reinstall windows again to use it (since you can only install and activate CS3 on one machine with the same windows + computer it was activated on.)

Another personal experience is that I lost a few documents in a hacking attack at work. This was on a Vista machine. System restore was enabled, so what-the-hell, tried it out on Vista. Windows never started after that; wasted a good day reinstalling, setting up, and updating the darn thing to a usable state again. Plus the fact I lost documents that I needed and had to get my backup HDD from home to work the next week (this happened on a Friday). And yeah, it was fully protected. Just an out-of-the-blue cyber attack...

Granted, XP and even Vista are 'old' OSes, but the above incidents (and a few more) have put me off for life. Alas, I always leave it off in the Windows Protection Tab...

 

You could disable the Windows Search service and that stops all indexing.

 

Hi:
I used taskmanager, and it doesn't seem that anything is using much CPU. Google Chrome uses the most, and that is between 02-04. Only a couple others seem to use any at all, and that is around 01 (including Live Messenger, windows explorer, desktop window manage, ApMsgFwd). This 01 usage is intermittent. System Idle Process uses a high amount, but that sounds normal (at least to a novice like me ).
I also checked an the Vaio analyzer is not set to check anything. Same with content monitoring services.
Also, I have not setup backup to run ever.
I have Norton 2010 setup to run background processes when system is idle, can this be causing the problem?
Thanks so much!
PS: Thanks so much to everyone who replied!!

 

Not surprising as the advice to look at what was using the CPU most was on the wrong track. You are trying tot track down what is hitting the disk drive. Now in 5ushiMonsters defense, often time the task hitting the drive is also the task hitting the cpu, but not always. That is why I suggested you use the resource manager built into task manager to see what is actually hitting the disk drive. Go to the performance tab of task manager and you will see a performance monitor button. Like it and you will see several horizontal bands that can display info about various aspects of your machine. One of those is labeled disk. Expand it and you can see what task is hitting the disk and what file it is reading or writing.

Gary

BTW my question still stands: are you in Cincinnati?