No, of course it isn't normal.
If you run something that triggers the led, eg. a simple dir, does it get unstuck?

Do yo have caching software installed like Smartdrive?

Only pure 7.1 DOS from Windows 98. Maybe SmartDrive is emebeded in DOS7?

Hi, I got the same problem, even worse because HDD LED is active since power up and only go off when Windows 98 is fully loaded, so DOS 6.22 or 7.1 in command prompt makes HDD LED stuck at active ..and it doesn't matter if I load any program or search in folders it's just shining red.

Maybe too little ram, constant swapping - esp if DOS is launched from within windows?

Alternately some file compression on the partition in windows that takes place in the background?

Is the LED constantly lit without any pulsing (which may indicate electric problem) or flashing rapidly, which suggests HDD activity?

> Only pure 7.1 DOS from Windows 98. Maybe SmartDrive is emebeded in DOS7?

No it's not.

I had this issue and it was caused by my CD-ROM drive - if you have one installed then try not loading the driver and see if that makes a difference. If it is that, then there's a little app that resets a CD-ROM drive and that fixed it for me. CDBEQUIET or something like that?

Nope. Without CDROM that same situation. Strange.... in pure DOS 6.22 is ok, in pure 7.1 not

badmojo wrote on 2022-11-07, 05:42:

I had this issue and it was caused by my CD-ROM drive - if you have one installed then try not loading the driver and see if that makes a difference. If it is that, then there's a little app that resets a CD-ROM drive and that fixed it for me. CDBEQUIET or something like that?

Thanks, disconnecting optical drive fixed the issue, so the next issue to fix is that I missing optical drive now 😁