Macintosh: Troubleshooting Frequent Hard Disk Access Light



My hard drive access light comes on every 15 seconds or so, blinks as if it
is accessing a file, then stops. This happens all the time. What's going
on?

This behavior is most likely caused by a third-party INIT or CDEV, such as
On Location, rather than by a hardware problem. An easy test is to start
up your system with a known-good System floppy disk. If the symptoms
persist, then you may have a damaged hard drive -- though the problem is
most likely in software.


Published Date: Feb 18, 2012