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Troubleshooting

Each section names a symptom, its usual cause and the steps that resolve it. For the meaning of the indicators, see What the LED bar shows.

The LED bar is not visible although the program is running​

Cause: The bar was hidden with Hide LED bar, and the hidden state is saved for the next start. Windows can also place the DriveLED icon in the overflow of hidden icons.

Solution:

  1. Open the overflow of hidden icons in the Windows notification area.
  2. Right-click the DriveLED icon and select Show LED bar.
  3. If the bar is still hard to see, raise its opacity or enable Always on top in the context menu. See Position and appearance.

Cause: The drive is idle, or Windows does not expose activity counters for this drive type. Some virtual, optical and network drives supply no usable counters.

Solution:

  1. Open or copy an ordinary file on the drive and watch the bar.
  2. Check in the context menu that the selected view includes the drive (View external drives, View virtual drives).
  3. If the drive still never blinks, Windows does not report its activity. The absence of blinking is not a hardware diagnosis.

A drive is missing from the bar​

Cause: Fixed drives are shown by default; removable, network, optical and virtual drives need the matching view option. A disconnected drive is not listed.

Solution:

  1. Check that the drive is connected and available in File Explorer.
  2. Enable View external drives or View virtual drives in the context menu. See Choose the drives to show.
  3. DriveLED updates its drive list when devices are added or removed; reconnect the drive if it is still missing.

An external drive is shown although "View external drives" is off​

Cause: Windows classifies some external hard disks as fixed drives, and fixed drives are included by default.

Solution: This is expected. The drive is listed because of its Windows classification, not because of the view option.

DriveLED no longer starts with Windows​

Cause: Automatic startup registers the executable at its current location. After the file was moved, the registration points to a location that no longer exists.

Solution:

  1. Start DriveLED from its new location.
  2. Open the context menu, clear Automatic startup, and enable it again. See Startup and notification area.

A red light stays on​

Cause: Red shows write activity, not an error. Windows, an application or a background task is writing to the drive.

Solution: No action in DriveLED is required. To find the process that writes, use a tool that analyzes accesses by process and file, such as O&O VisualDisk, which is supplied with O&O Defrag. See What the LED bar shows.