Red led staying lit on hd

[Rimrogs]

The red led is staying on all the time on my hd. The pc seemed to work ok and the cpu usage is normal (low). This seems to coincide with recent installation of Norton Internet Security package? Is it a coincidence?

I've also noticed that occasionally the cpu use jumps to 100% and task manager indicates it's a 'svshost' program (one of several on my pc). I can't do anything until it decides to finish.
Any suggestions welcome.

 

[Igorian]

Uninstall NIS. See what happens.

 

[Rimrogs]

I was going to uninstall NIS but noticed that red led came on immediately & stayed on during bootup, even after I excluded all basic programs from starting using MSCONFIG menu (inc Norton) and did not blink once. Do you think that it's still worthwhile uninstalling NIS?

 

[JohnD]

have you got anything else installed in the same IDE cable? I notice (when I have 2 disk caddies sharing 1 IDE) that their LEDs come on together. Not sure if it happens when one is a DVD or CD drive.

If not that, I would be backing up my data to CDs in the expectation of an imminent HD failure. Are your disks on SMART?

Have you made any recent hardware changes?

 

[Igorian]

I was going to uninstall NIS but noticed that red led came on immediately & stayed on during bootup, even after I excluded all basic programs from starting using MSCONFIG menu (inc Norton) and did not blink once. Do you think that it's still worthwhile uninstalling NIS?

IMHO, I would uninstall it anyway. It's bloated and resource hungry. The A/V product is ok, the IS bit is horrid. Do you really need a software firewall? Are you using a decent router?

 

[Softus]

The red led is staying on all the time on my hd. The pc seemed to work ok and the cpu usage is normal (low). This seems to coincide with recent installation of Norton Internet Security package? Is it a coincidence?

Which O/S?

I've also noticed that occasionally the cpu use jumps to 100% and task manager indicates it's a 'svshost' program (one of several on my pc). I can't do anything until it decides to finish.

If you mean "svchost", then this is almost certainly a legitimate process being used abnormally. If you really mean "svshost", then it's either a virus or some spyware.

Any suggestions welcome.

Please provide some more details of the PC and of your Internet connection.