# Hard Drive Light on Case Is Red



## EpicSurvivor

Hi guys, I know this is a hit or miss thing, but honestly I am new about computer stuff. But yesterday my friend came over from School, and helped me do better cable management on my Computer. We took the PSU and basically rerouted all the cabling.

This morning I noticed that the Hard Drive light next to the power button on my case (Just to clarify) was RED when I first powered on the PC.

The computer Booted with No problem, and is working fine, except that it seems that its taking longer to load all my Desktop apps, and is taking it longer to run programs.

The Hard Drive Light is Flashing RED still.

I know that there are bunch of FREE HHD diagnostic tools out there, but I am not sure what do I need to use, or what do I need to do.

Any ideas on what I should do or what program I should start of by using?


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## johnb35

Is it flashing or steady lit all the time?  It is possible you reversed the hdd led connection to the motherboard.  That would cause this sort of issue.  Just pull the connection up and turn it clockwise/counter clockwise 180 degrees and reinsert.


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## Twiki

Check your data cables? You might have skewered one on your drive.


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## The_Other_One

HD headers on your motherboard have two wires, + and -.  Unless this case has additional wires to allow you to pick/change your color, the color will be consistent.  I'd look at the wires going to the header and confirm everything is plugged in correctly...

Also, were the SATA cables moved around?  If so, are you sure they were plugged into the same ports?  Sometimes if you change SATA ports the PC will basically re-initialize the drive and that can slow things down for a little bit.  Oooor, if cables were moved, confirm the correct drives are plugged into SATA6 ports.


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## EpicSurvivor

johnb35 said:


> Is it flashing or steady lit all the time?  It is possible you reversed the hdd led connection to the motherboard.  That would cause this sort of issue.  Just pull the connection up and turn it clockwise/counter clockwise 180 degrees and reinsert.



I will try this right now.



Twiki said:


> Check your data cables? You might have skewered one on your drive.



Not that I can see.



The_Other_One said:


> HD headers on your motherboard have two wires, + and -.  Unless this case has additional wires to allow you to pick/change your color, the color will be consistent.  I'd look at the wires going to the header and confirm everything is plugged in correctly...
> 
> Also, were the SATA cables moved around?  If so, are you sure they were plugged into the same ports?  Sometimes if you change SATA ports the PC will basically re-initialize the drive and that can slow things down for a little bit.  Oooor, if cables were moved, confirm the correct drives are plugged into SATA6 ports.



Yes we disconnected everything from the PSU! yesterday, and we took the PSU out for cleaning and then we rewired the whole computer. We made it looks 2 times better than before, but anyway, that's not important right now. I will look into all you guys suggestions right now. I am going to restart so I can run Error-Checking, and that tends to take an hour or so. 

By the way, before I do that, I want to mention that I haven't had ANY issues after powering the Computer this morning. Yes the red light is still on, and when I first started the Computer, everything was very Slow and Freezing, and it took longer to load all my stuff. But after that I haven't had any issues. Being that its Sunday, I was playing some Games and didn't have no problems at all.

I will report here in an hour or so.


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## Twiki

Yet that red light just stay on? It's not wired to the power led?


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## EpicSurvivor

I am really not sure. I might have to wait for my friend to come over next time. 
I really am new. I have question, just b.c the hard srive light on my case is red, it dont nessesarily mean that there is something wrong with my HDD correct?


Because when we first built it....i didnt even have any HDD led on my case lol. So what i am trying to say is that the red led.... all it could be is its simply that we didt plug the LED things right. Could this be a possibility? Or does it really mean that there is something wrong with my HDD?



The disk check scan is still runing so i am on my phone (Droid3) right now. I will report back with you guys here when the disk check completes


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## johnb35

Usually the hdd light on all the time or not on at all is because the + and - connections on the hdd led connection is reversed.  Disconnect the hard drive and see if the light is still on.  If so, then its the connection.


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## EpicSurvivor

*No access to side panel*



johnb35 said:


> Usually the hdd light on all the time or not on at all is because the + and - connections on the hdd led connection is reversed.  Disconnect the hard drive and see if the light is still on.  If so, then its the connection.



Truth is.... I can easily do that, but the most difficult part for me would be having to put the side panel back on, because i Have to take it off to get to my HDD connection, and its like really hard to put back on. I have a Rosewill Blackhawk case, so cable management is limited overall, but a Modular PSU would help fix that issue lol.


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## Twiki

You said your system is working fine so let it go and wait for your friend. I'm pretty sure the drive light is on the power led pins.


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## EpicSurvivor

Twiki said:


> You said your system is working fine so let it go and wait for your friend. I'm pretty sure the drive light is on the power led pins.




No, I could do it, I am pretty sure it is what Johnb35 said.  Its just so hard putting the side panel again, that I might just leave it as is, if I have no problems. Other than just having the wrong color light. I will fix it eventually but after yesterdays struggle trying to put the side panel back ON i am just going to leave it as is


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## johnb35

Twiki said:


> I'm pretty sure the drive light is on the power led pins.



If that's the case, why is the power led light on????  Can't have 2 connections on the same pins.


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## EpicSurvivor

johnb35 said:


> If that's the case, why is the power led light on????  Can't have 2 connections on the same pins.




The power LED light is on because the Computer is on lol. I don't understand sorry.


Well I do know that I used the Windows "Error-Checking" Utility and I didn't get an after diagnosis report, but the times I did watch the progress I didn't see any errors come up on the screen.

But I ran this diagnosis from Seagate and I got Disk Error Check Fail message, which would mean that the RED light is correct and that there is something wrong with the HDD. I am sorry about the confusion, since I never had the HDD light ON at all, sicne I had this PC, I figured that it was because we didn't plug something in correctly yesterday.


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## johnb35

EpicSurvivor said:


> The power LED light is on because the Computer is on lol. I don't understand sorry.



I was quoting Twiki, not you.  He is saying the hard drive led connection is attached to the power led connection.  Yet, both power and hdd activitiy lights are on.  So his theory is wrong.


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## johnb35

Looks like you will have to remove the bad hard drive and see what happens with the hard drive light.


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## voyagerfan99

EpicSurvivor said:


> The power LED light is on because the Computer is on lol. I don't understand sorry.
> 
> 
> Well I do know that I used the Windows "Error-Checking" Utility and I didn't get an after diagnosis report, but the times I did watch the progress I didn't see any errors come up on the screen.
> 
> But I ran this diagnosis from Seagate and I got Disk Error Check Fail message, which would mean that the RED light is correct and that there is something wrong with the HDD. I am sorry about the confusion, since I never had the HDD light ON at all, sicne I had this PC, I figured that it was because we didn't plug something in correctly yesterday.



Your hard drive is dying. You're going to need to replace the drive.

And as far as the HDD light, all HDD activity lights are red. The light does not indicate anything other than activity.


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## EpicSurvivor

voyagerfan99 said:


> Your hard drive is dying. You're going to need to replace the drive.
> 
> And as far as the HDD light, all HDD activity lights are red. The light does not indicate anything other than activity.



I don't mean to sound like a smarta**, but wouldn't the HDD light be Colored according the the HDD condition? Say Green/Blue=Working  Red/Yello=Error...etc.


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## johnb35

EpicSurvivor said:


> I don't mean to sound like a smarta**, but wouldn't the HDD light be Colored according the the HDD condition? Say Green/Blue=Working  Red/Yello=Error...etc.



Nope, that light is only for hard drive activity, lets you know when the hard drive is actually writing or reading data.  Has nothing to with the health of the hard drive.


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## Twiki

Ah, I missed that so yeah, the HDD may be going bad. Could explain why that led stayed lit.


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## StrangleHold

Might be a bad drive. Buts its odd that everything was fine till you moved cables around.


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## EpicSurvivor

StrangleHold said:


> Might be a bad drive. Buts its odd that everything was fine till you moved cables around.



Well, that's the thing. My friend was kinda rough on putting the side panel on so we might have "Banged" The panel for it to fit...ehem...... Yea.....

What can I do? Games keep crashing, and I keep noticing is sluggish on some APPS. Its def not working like it was before.


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## voyagerfan99

The diagnostics showed your drive is bad. Best result would be to buy a new hard drive and reinstall Windows.


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## EpicSurvivor

voyagerfan99 said:


> The diagnostics showed your drive is bad. Best result would be to buy a new hard drive and reinstall Windows.




Indeed!

Now, I shouldn't have to BUY a new one out of Pocket, because this one is only 6 months old since I bought it New from Newegg. So I hope I can just RMA it.

Now, I never really had to RMA anything that I can remember of. But do they just send you a new unit to replace the faulty one? is that how it works? Or will they give me a REFURB?


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185


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## voyagerfan99

Newegg's warranty is only 30 days. You need to set up an RMA with Seagate. You can choose to have them rush you one (where they place a hold on a credit card until they receive the old drive) or send them the drive and when they get it they will send you a new drive. All you need to pay is shipping of the drive back to the RMA center.

http://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/


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## EpicSurvivor

voyagerfan99 said:


> Newegg's warranty is only 30 days. You need to set up an RMA with Seagate. You can choose to have them rush you one (where they place a hold on a credit card until they receive the old drive) or send them the drive and when they get it they will send you a new drive. All you need to pay is shipping of the drive back to the RMA center.
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/



Oh okay, but will Seagate send me a Refurb? That's what I was worried about. How does that usually work?


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## voyagerfan99

EpicSurvivor said:


> Oh okay, but will Seagate send me a Refurb? That's what I was worried about. How does that usually work?



Yes, they normally send you a refurbished unit and has the remaining warranty of the defective drive.If defective drive was almost at the end of warranty the drive comes with either a 30 or 90 day (can't remember exactly) warranty.


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