HDD LED not lighting up on first boot

GoldenI

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2010
445
0
18,810
All-right, folks. In the tower I have the graphics card, processor, motherboard and power supply. I turned it on to make sure the fans and everything was working, however, upon doing so I discovered that the HDD LED on the front of the computer was not turning on at all. Everything else seemed to be working - the motherboard responded (I heard the POST beeps indicating it was searching for RAM), the fans were turning, etc. The only thing that was not on was the hard drive LED. The DVD drive opens and closes when I press the button and the LED on that works, but the HDD light doesn't come on.

There's nothing but the HDD, PSU, GPU, CPU, motherboard and fans in the system. Just wondering if it's absolutely normal for the HDD LED to not turn on on the very first boot without an OS on it.

Thanks,

GoldenI
 
Solution

spacemaynee

Distinguished
Dec 8, 2010
13
0
18,520



I just recently build my first too and i did notice this as well with my antec 300. i didn't have a OS for a day and was just messing around familarizing myself with BIOS. NO HDD light. I figured i wait to see if it still doesn't come on while im installing windows 7. well once i inserted the disc and it started the process of isntallation my HDD LED came right on. Blinking away.

Hope that helps. Just wait till you install before you troubleshoot.
 
Solution

GoldenI

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2010
445
0
18,810
My issue wasn't lack of an OS, it was in the wrong SATA port. Instead of being in the SATA 1 or SATA 2 port, it was in the SATA_e1 port. Once I switched ports, the red HDD light came on indicating that it was being recognized by the system. All systems go!

Cheers.