Bushfiva, I did write a reply and then for some reason didn't post it...the gist was that I need such a simple piece of information that I don't really want to load anything that will tempt me to play with it.
Mixture, that's interesting. I was under the (wishful) impression, that the little used drive spent most of its time spooled down. Maybe not. Now I need an annunciation light even more.
However, I've done two things. Posing the question, tilted me over the edge and I booted on the other drive - and yes, it seems to have got the latest files. The other thing is that I've remembered positioning the old drive in a slot instead of vertically downwards as HP put it originally. I find it hard to believe, but it must have been amplifying the noise on the front chassis.
In W7 I don't seem to have the disc monitoring program that was in XP Pro, but that may have been some apps that was put on the bogus disc ( that I posted on some time ago.)
Come to think of it, that handy item was all I need cos it did show activity. Anyone know if it was part of XP Pro or not?