How to stop continuous HDD access?

[Moat]

Turning off the HDD or removing it aren't an option...

Completely harmless, easy-peasy 5 minute job with only a screwdriver...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3scr5F_hnE

As numerous others have already mentioned, booting Puppy with the HD removed may very well provide a valuable clue - or at the very least will eliminate an outstanding possibility.

Pop out - test - pop back in. Done. Back to normal.



Bob

[mostly_lurking]

As others have said before, the flashing probably comes from the system polling the hardware, i.e. to check for newly connected devices (USB etc), not from actual HDD read/write. You could check if that's the case by turning off the hotplug support, if your Puppy has such an option. On mine (Wary 5.1.2) it's under Menu > System > Puppy Event Manager.

(Warning: on my system, turning hotplugging back on didn't restore the full functionality - I was able to get my drive icons back, but clicking them would just open Pmount instead of mounting the partition. If yours works equally 'meh', you might have to reboot to get it back to normal. No idea if this mess would stick if the session was saved.)

[Mike7]

Hi, mostly_lurking.

As others have said before, the flashing probably comes from the system polling the hardware, i.e. to check for newly connected devices (USB etc), not from actual HDD read/write.

This is pure conjecture until I have time to check by playing around with the hdparm command and putting the HDD to sleep.

You could check if that's the case by turning off the hotplug support

I could, maybe, but. . .

on my system, turning hotplugging back on didn't restore the full functionality

it's too risky.

Mike

[Mike7]

Completely harmless, easy-peasy 5 minute job with only a screwdriver.

About six year ago, I "popped out" a HDD from another computer and when I "popped it back in" it no longer worked. Since the HDDs for that particular machine cost more than the machine, I had to dump it. Nuff said?

M.