Vista Sleep Issue

Recently, whenever I try to put my Vista Home Premium x64 computer to sleep, I notice the hard drive still running. All lights are on and the applications are still running in the background. However, since I have a laptop, if I unplug the power, then put it on sleep, the apps no longer run in the background and the hard drive turns off. Is there any way to make this happen while the laptop is on power? (I have tried having hybrid sleep on and off.)

Welcome

It is my guess that some process, continues to run, hence the HD lights are blinking.

Lets experiment. Do the clean boot, if the problem does not happen, follow the instructions to find out the culprit.

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/63567-power-options-sleep-mode-problems.html
for both 7 and Vista