Jump to content

HD activity lights?


triger49

Recommended Posts

It seems like a similar thingy for the Win9x/Me family is VERY diffcult to find. :(

I was able to find a few, but all for the NT/2K/XP family.

BUT B) :

............................................

A more recent version is here :) :

http://hdled.home.comcast.net/~hdled/

reported as working for both 98 and Me, but the e-mail at attbi.com should mean that the thingy is "on it's own". :unsure:

jaclaz

Bingo....last one in the list worked....($20 shareware)

One other thing, found a foot note in with info I saved about joining ZD_Net years ago....sure enough, in a list of downloads I wanted from them was HD Light utilty....at least I know where I found it....times like this I think it would be nice to Google my Apt.... :wacko:

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Maybe you were thinking about this one:

http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=744749

Homepage is here:

http://www.dkpcode.com/html/downloads.html#DKHardDrive-Light

Though ZDnet says:

System Req: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Microsoft .Net Framework

Developer says:

Product: DKHardDrive-Light - Desktop (on screen) hard drive light.

Version: 1.2.2

Platform: Windows 2000/XP/Vista

jaclaz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://hdled.home.comcast.net/~hdled/...Bingo....last one in the list worked....($20 shareware)
My initial impression is that Hard Disk LED v1.1 of Feb.1997 seems to work fine under Win98SE on my old 750MHz Inspiron 7500 laptop (120GB internal PATA HDD) connected to a 1.5TB SATA HDD in an external Thermaltake USB enclosure. The read and write lights flash in the system tray when there is HDD read/write activity, regardless whether from accessing the USB HDD or the internal HDD. It works fine with ScanDisk and NDD, the activity lights are flashing while ScanDisk/NDD is accessing the internal or external HDD.

On my desktop (2.2GHz dual core, GeForce 7800GS and a 750GB internal HDD) this utility had initially a display problem under Win98: The activity lights rarely flashed during disk activity. After setting the Priority on its system tray icon to "Lowest", the activity lights flashed much better, but still not as well as the actual LED on the computer case.

One big gripe: the 2 activity lights in the system tray are miniscule, a magnifying glass could be handy.

My initial impression is that Hard Disk LED v1.1 seems to work fine under Win98 with old hardware (e.g. my 10-year-old laptop), but has some issues with modern hardware (e.g. my desktop with a 2.2GHz dual core). Maybe somebody else could join me in testing this 12-year-old software on modern hardware, to make sure that there are no hidden issues.

Edited by Multibooter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe somebody else could join me in testing this 12-year-old software on modern hardware, to make sure that there are no hidden issues.
I have experienced twice on my desktop some corruption of Windows Explorer after having installed Hard Disk LED, I never had this before: when I double-clicked on the StartUp folder, it didn't open, but another software loaded, the same happened when I clicked on some, but not all, desktop icons. After rebooting, this happened again after some time, but I haven't been able to repeat this corruption so far.

When I play a movie from an external 1.5TB USB HDD on the fast desktop or on the slower old laptop (which has a modern 120GB HDD), the system tray icon of Hard Disk LED does not show any perceptible disk activity; the physical access lights of the Thermaltake USB enclosure do flicker slightly however. Maybe current disk access times are too fast for Hard Disk LED .

Edited by Multibooter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about SoftLeds? It's shareware too, but costs less, its latest version is from 2004 and it's from xFX JumpStart
Hi dencorso,

I tried their latest version v1.09.0006 of 23-May-2008, its installer states that it's only for WinXP/2003 and Vista. It installs under Win98, but does not run. Any idea where there are older versions which run under Win98? v1.6.002 seems to have run under Win98 http://www.sharewareriver.com/product.php?id=8494 but its not there anymore.

Edited by Multibooter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any idea where there are older versions which run under Win98?

Sorry, Multibooter, my bad! :blushing: I thought the links in the News section of SoftLeds at the xFX site pointed to the older versions. Now I've checked it, and found out they all point to the latest version only. I've looked around the net and it seems the're nowhere to be found. Sorry for the misleading suggestion. I was misled myself. :wacko:

PS: Consider, however, that perhaps sending an e-mail to xFX might work: they may yet mantain a back version archive and be willing to send you the version you need. It has worked for me a couple of times in the past, in similar situations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortunately Shareware, will disactivate after 30 minutes....:(

A more recent version is here :) :

http://hdled.home.comcast.net/~hdled/

reported as working for both 98 and Me, but the e-mail at attbi.com should mean that the thingy is "on it's own". :unsure:

The mule may surely help, even with ancient Hard Disk LED 1.1, which may be the only utility of its kind for Win98. Any other experiences or issues detected after testing for more than 30 minutes? :rolleyes:
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Thanks Jake,

rubberducky didn't convince me, on my old laptop I hardly can see the 2 plants (=disk activity indicators) move and the whole thing is not really intuitive. But maybe we will still find something. A disk activity indicator is quite useful, to see whether a program is still doing something or whether it's frozen, or whether an installation is is doing something or hung, etc.

5 months ago I have built myself a little external USB solid-state HDD, consisting of a USB hub with a built-in SDHC card reader plus 2 more SDHC card reader sticks attached to it, altogether 3x16=48GB storage. I have been using it nearly uninterruptedly for 5 months as an eMule download station, without any problems. Every SDHC card reader has a little physical disk activity light built in, this makes for very easy checking of the upload and download activity of the mule, or whether the mule hangs, even when the laptop screen has shut itself off.

I have CPUIdle as the CPU activity indicator, it works also with a dual-core CPU under Win98, maybe we eventually can find a good disk activity indicator for Win98.

Edited by Multibooter
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you like that kind of stuff, here is Tray Animations :thumbup

http://download.computerbild.de/downloads/...44/trayanim.exe

Edit: Get this one instead that I have just uploaded, there is a bundled library of nearly 500 animations plus an animation editor :

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?aunmenandad

Very rare freeware stuff you can't elsewhere online I think.

Edited by eidenk
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...