During the past two months I have built two new Windows-based systems using the Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 hard drive, model ST3500320AS, in a non-RAID config. On both systems, using different motherboards and other dissimilar hardware, the disk activity light pulses at a rate of approximately once per second during system inactivity with Windows XP or Vista booted from either a DVD/CD to the install/repair prompt or full startup from the hard drive. The pulsing continues to take place even after dismounting the hard drive volumes when boot up took place using a DVD/CD. SATA AHCI or IDE modes don't matter. In comparison, booting up on a PuppyLinux CD and the disk activity light is nearly perfectly quiet during inactivity even with the hard drive volumes mounted. Otherwise, it seems to have no effect on hard drive performance. In fact, Vista gives the hard disk performance a 5.9 on both systems. The motherboards are Gigabyte P35C-DS3R and GA-78GM-S2H with Antec 900 and Apevia X-QPACK2 cases, respectively.
This is leading me to think that this is a Windows driver issue for this fairly recently released hard drive. Otherwise, I find it hard to believe that I am the only one experiencing this. Thoughts, feedback? Thanks.
This is leading me to think that this is a Windows driver issue for this fairly recently released hard drive. Otherwise, I find it hard to believe that I am the only one experiencing this. Thoughts, feedback? Thanks.