# hald HDD activity once per second while idle?

## ben_dash

I just installed Gentoo on a new PC, and I noticed that the HDD is showing activity once per second all the time.

When I stop hald then the HDD activity stops.

I don't want to load my HDD unnecessarily so I was wondering if there's a way to see what hald is actually doing?

I see that HALD_VERBOSE is used in the hald init script and changed it to "yes" but where does it output the verbose info to so I can see what it's doing?

Hopefully it's polling the CD drive or something and not the HDD, and the PC just has the light wired up strangely.

Please let me know any ideas, thanks in advance.

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## ben_dash

ok so I see the hald output, I'm a dunce  :Wink:  but it doesn't seem to be doing anything:

```
[12215]: 07:06:14.026 [D] probe-storage.c:141: Doing probe-storage for /dev/sr0 (bus pci) (drive_type cdrom) (udi=/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_model_DVDRAM_GH15F) (--only-check-for-fs==1)

[12215]: 07:06:14.026 [D] probe-storage.c:192: Doing open ("/dev/sr0", O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK)

[12215]: 07:06:14.043 [D] probe-storage.c:198: Returned from open(2)

[12215]: 07:06:14.048 [D] probe-storage.c:342: Checking for optical disc on /dev/sr0

[12215]: 07:06:14.048 [D] probe-storage.c:350: Doing open ("/dev/sr0", O_RDONLY | O_NONBLOCK | O_EXCL)

[12215]: 07:06:14.057 [D] probe-storage.c:380: PROBE HAS EXCLUSIVE LOCK ON CDROM

[12215]: 07:06:14.068 [D] probe-storage.c:430: PROBE CLOSED LOCK ON CDROM

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1342: storage.cdrom.read_speed -> 7056

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1342: storage.cdrom.write_speed -> 7057

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 7057

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 7056

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 5646

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 5645

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 4235

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 4234

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 2822

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 1411

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1320:  strlist elem storage.cdrom.write_speeds -> 706

07:06:14.069 [I] hald_dbus.c:1366: storage.removable.media_available -> False

pid 12215: rc=0 signaled=0: /usr/libexec/hald-probe-storage

07:06:14.070 [I] blockdev.c:1735: hald-probe-storage --only-check-for-media returned 0 (exit_type=0)

07:06:14.070 [D] hotplug.c:453: events queued = 0, events in progress = 0

07:06:14.070 [D] hotplug.c:458: Hotplug-queue empty now ... no hotplug events in progress

[12204]: 07:06:16.001 [I] addon-storage.c:354: Checking whether device /dev/sdb is locked on HAL

[12209]: 07:06:16.001 [I] addon-storage.c:354: Checking whether device /dev/sr0 is locked on HAL

[12204]: 07:06:16.001 [I] addon-storage.c:362: ... device /dev/sdb is not locked on HAL

[12209]: 07:06:16.001 [I] addon-storage.c:362: ... device /dev/sr0 is not locked on HAL
```

The HDD is flashing once per second and hald logs nothing... what's it up to?

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## Monkeh

It's polling the CD drive. There's nothing strange about the 'wiring' of the light, it simply shows bus activity.

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## ben_dash

Weird, none of my other PCs running hald flash the HDD light constantly, although they are all different manufacturers.

I'm going to have to unplug the light if that's all it is because it's super annoying to have a blindingly bright blue led flash once per second constantly.

It would be nice if the hald verbose output acually logged these polls but I guess it would fill up the logs.

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## doctork

 *ben_dash wrote:*   

> Weird, none of my other PCs running hald flash the HDD light constantly, although they are all different manufacturers.
> 
> I'm going to have to unplug the light if that's all it is because it's super annoying to have a blindingly bright blue led flash once per second constantly.
> 
> It would be nice if the hald verbose output acually logged these polls but I guess it would fill up the logs.

 You can disable the polling (at least it works for me) by putting this in 

/etc/hal/fdi/information/media-check-disable-storage_model_DVD_RW__DVR_215D.fdi

```
?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<deviceinfo version="0.2">

  <device>

    <match key="info.udi" string="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_model_DVD_RW__DVR_215D">

      <merge key="storage.media_check_enabled" type="bool">false</merge>

    </match>

  </device>

</deviceinfo>
```

Edit: That "match key" entry is really all one line.

--

doc

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## Monkeh

And that'll only one for one specific drive..

More useful: hal-disable-polling /dev/whateveryourdeviceis

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