Software that emulates led light for HD

[Yasu]

Forgive me for what might be a noob question (I'm new).

I have read that the Aone500 doesn't have a led light for it's hard drive. That would mean that you can't know if the hard drive is working/writing or not when you wanna shut the computer down or reboot.

Is there a program out there that shows you if the hard disk is working? That really would be the next best thing.

[Duce]

The LED light would be on the case, with a wire from the case to a 2 pin jumper on the motherboard.  I cannot imagine there is not a LED jumper on the SAM 460 mobo.  As for if the AmigaOne 500 has a HD activity light on that case, I'd find it hard to believe it doesn't.

There's one (HD jumper) on my SAM 440ep mobo, which I threw into a $40 commodity MiniITX case which also has a HD act. LED and wiring.

I have never seen a case without a HDD LED other than some of the Apple machines, and you know how they run things

[Yasu]

Well, this is what Amiga Future 94 is claiming: no led light on the case. At least not for the HD, but for power it seems. Seems like a stupid mistake to do, but never the less it's done.

[Duce]

After looking over the SAM 460 mobo manual, it does indeed have a Hard Disk activity 2 pin jumper, as expected.

Block J29 - 1-2

As for whatever case they are supplying with a prebuilt machine, I can't vouch for that.

If there's a PC case without a HD LED, I've never seen it.

I recommend contacting the vendor you are considering dealing with just to make sure - for a small scene, us Amiga guys do have excellent retail support.

[Yasu]

I'll do that. Worst case scenario, I guess one can make a little hole and add the led oneself (in my case, with a little help).

But I would still like to know if there is any program that does the same job on the desktop as a HD led would.

[Duce]

I imagine there's a widget or Dockie add on for it.  Will have a look through OS4 Depot and see what I find.

[Yasu]

I imagine there's a widget or Dockie add on for it.  Will have a look through OS4 Depot and see what I find.

That would be awesome!

[Ral-Clan]

That would be awesome!

Even if the motherboard doesn't have pins for a hard drive LED, the hard drive itself may have these pins (at least it was a common thing in the 1990s) - I don't know if modern hard drives still follow this practise.

[persia]

You only have seven pins


Pin# Function
1 Earth
2 A+ (Transmit)
3 A− (Transmit)
4 Earth
5 B− (Receive)
6 B+ (Receive)
7 Earth

So you'd need to interpret on 2 and 3 and 5 and 6 as activity to power a light.

[LoadWB]

I'm pretty sure my MacMini doesn't have a hard drive activity LED.  Don't get me wrong, if the case has one I'm going to find a way to wire it in.  But over all, I don't see the activity indicator as anything more than comforting.  In an age when the computer handles its own power, we don't really have to be concerned about whether the hard drive is working or not before we kill the power on the system.

Having said that, there are a number of threads out there which indicate that there is no LED lead from the connectors.  Pinouts.ru confirms this, provided the pin-outs are accurate.  I recall reading that the power connector had an activity LED lead, but I can't find that again to corroborate -- pin 11 shows as "reserved," and that may have been it.  It's in amongst a bunch of ground lines, so I would assume worst case it's grounded, and probably varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.

[Yasu]

 But over all, I don't see the activity indicator as anything more than comforting.

...

.. pin 11 shows as "reserved," and that may have been it.

Maybe so, but I'd rather be safe than sorry if you know what I mean. That's why I would really appreciate a program that does the same thing.

I'm not the one to fickle with hardware, no chance! I would just break it.