Can be a sign of a failing drive, or mobo, use the test utility available
from HD site, to create the boot floppy/cd test utility.

"Martin C" <martinC@invalid.com> wrote in message
news:48746aff$1_1@glkas0286.greenlnk.net...
> This is probably not an XP issue (hence the OT in the subject line), but
> someone here may be able to help.
>
> Doing nothing special (just selecting the start menu), the PC locked up
> totally with the HDD light on permanently. I waited for an hour before
> deciding that it was totally locked. Ctrl/Alt/Del would not work either.
> The HDD did not sound as if it was accessing, so I performed a hard turn
> off with the power button.
>
> I now have the following. The HDD light comes on immediately power is
> applied and stays on permanently. The BIOS now cannot set either the DVD
> ROM drive or my spare IDE HDD. The main drive is a SATA which is seen ok.
> Not sure if this went at the same time, but certainly not a long time
> before.
>
> It takes a lot longer to get through the splash screen at the start of the
> boot (ASUS BIOS motherboard splash screen) and takes longer to boot into
> XP, but it does get there. I can use XP as normal, but things are a fair
> bit slower than usual.
>
> I have tried the following:
> Checked device manager for items listed as failing - none (but DVD drive
> not listed)
> Disconnected the IDE cable from the DVD and IDE HDD - no change to HDD
> light.
> Replaced IDE cable with a spare - no change to light or devices
> Tried the second IDE port (have both devices on one IDE cable) - no change
> to light or devices.
>
> I cannot get my DVD or IDE HDD back and the HDD light stays on all the
> time.
>
> I have yet to try resetting the BIOS and cloning the SATA drive and try
> with the cloned drive, but thought I would try here first.
>
> Thanks for any help you can provide. I have looked on Google, but have not
> managed to find a suitable answer yet.
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
>