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HDD Led issue, how to make it blink as normal?
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:03 am
by blackoil
the HDD led is always on, after boot to my os, it doesn't blink when acces harddrive sector. Is there any status bit I should read to acknowledge something?
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:29 am
by AJ
Hi,
If your OS is loaded from a hard drive, the BIOS may leave it spinning - when you finish with HD access, you need to spin the HD down (after, say, a delay of 500 msec).
Cheers,
Adam
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:06 am
by blackoil
I boot from floppy.
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:22 am
by xyzzy
Most bootloaders (GRUB definitely) don't turn off the floppy motor which will cause the LED to stay on.
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:24 am
by Solar
I noticed similar behaviour when I installed Linux on an Acer laptop recently, so it might not be your fault, not knowing what special tricks Windows has to pull off...
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:21 pm
by Jef
stop floppy motor:
Code: Select all
xor eax, eax
mov edx, 03F2h
out dx, al
start motor:
Code: Select all
mov eax, 1Ch
mov edx, 3F2h
out dx, al
Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:52 pm
by blackoil
I mean the Hard disk led, not the led on the floppy.
I suspect there is a bit in one of ata controller registers, that has to be toggled.
The led indicates whether the harddisk is busy or not.
I can't find any related references in T13 ocuments.