My hard drive LED light is staying on all the time. This just started today but everything on the drive is accessible and there doesn't appear to be any damage to the drive or anything stored on it. Any suggestions anyone????? Any ideas???

Dee :D

Is this a newly built system, or has it been up for awhile?
Reason i ask is, if it's a new system, you might try turning the plug around for the hdd light on the motherboard.

plug is backwards

Both answers are wrong. The LED will only work plugged in one way, and it is floppy drives that turn the LED on if the data cable is backwards.

Can to hear any disk activity when the LED is on, and you are not doing anything on the computer?

Oops, my bad, Shelly is of course right, your saying HDD but i'm thinkin' FD.

One key question ...Does the system boot and run?

No, there isn't any HD activity when the light is on and the system isn't a new one - it's about 2 1/2 years old. Up until I asked the question I'd had no problems with it ever.
BTW - when I turned the system back on and rebooted, the problem was gone. I'm hoping I don't have one of those intermittent things starting. They can be the pits to work out.
Fortunately I backed up all of my important files last night so if I have to replace my drive or rebuild my system all of my current data is safe.

Thanks for the help everyone,
Dee :D :D

to plug another LED on the HDD pin (temporarily of course), like the power LED, to see if it has the same behavior.

I started. Haven't fit on a definitive answer to it yet, cause now it still does it until the hard drive powers down (like when I set it to in the power management settings.) It has to try to power back up, and then the LED will act normal. Had it once before a long time ago with Win2000, and I linked it to a program that was running that I just reinstalled. I can't remember what it was though.

It was suggested that it was the drive. I still have yet to contact Maxtor about anything, but I might do that real soon. When I restart it comes back. I don't restart very often though.

Just started like this after installed XP, but didn't notice it until a while after I started installing programs. It might still be a program doing something.

Very interesting CollegeGuy. My problem drive is also a Maxtor!
Thanks for the heads-up.
Dee :D