Constant Hard Drive Access

[Sivany]

Recently my computer has suddenly begun to act a little strangely. Whenever it is idle for more than a few minutes it begins to grind terribly as if it is trying to constantly access the hard drive or something. It has never done this before and it's really getting annoying. Is there any reason this might suddenly have started and more importantly how can I stop it?

The only thing I have recently done is upgrade to the latest version of msn. I'm tempted to think this is the culprit since the problem only started after I did this, but I can't see why it would cause this problem.

I have Windows XP Home which is up to date with the latest service pack, an Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.66GHz processor and 1024Mb RAM.

Thanks.

[patio]

Do you have indexing service on ? ?
This can be checked under the Properties of the HDD...if so turn it off.
What kind of schedule are your protection apps set to ? ?
How old is this HDD ? ?
It may be headed South.

Let us know...

[Allan]

Also, check to see if your defrag utility is scheduled to run when the system is idle.

[Quantos]

How much HDD do you have free?

[Sivany]

The HDD is around 3 years old I think. Not sure how old would count as old in this case?
It is partitioned, one half has 70Gb capacity and 20.3 free, the other 41.7Gb capacity and 10.3 free.
As far as I can tell defrag utility isn't set to run whiilst the sytem is idle and never has been.
Indexing service is on, but this has never caused this problem before. I'm not exactly sure what this service does and when I tried to turn it off I got "access denied" messages regarding some files in the drive. I'm assuming this isn't normal? Should I be worried?
As for my protection apps, I use avast antivirus and it isn't set to run any regular scheduled scans, I just mannually run it myself.

Any other thoughts would be welcome!

[Karnac]

First and foremost, backup all your data that is important.
Second , go to your HD manufacturers website and run their diagnostic program to find out your HDs health.

[Allan]

Indexing service is not needed unless you do a lot of file searching. It very likely is the cause of the activity you see. You can disable indexing on the drives by either going to the drive properties and unchecking "index this drive" or by disabling the Indexing Service. Neither will cause any problems and neither should cause "access denied" messages.

Also, you can open task manager to the Processes Tab, sort on the CPU column (double-click on "CPU" to sort with highest usage at the top) and when you notice the drive activity look to see what is using the cycles.

[Sivany]

The moment I touch the computer (ie to open Task Manager) the grinding stops so I have no way of seeing exactly what is going on using task manager.


When I uncheck the "allow indexing service" box in the properties of my HDD it asks if I want to do this just for C:\ or for C:\, subfolders and files. Which should I be choosing. If I choose the latter I get a message saying something like "opperation could not be completed for *filname*" and it then asks to me to Ignore, Retry or Cancel. Retrying doesn't help, ignoring takes me to the next file error (there are many).

[Allan]

The moment I touch the computer (ie to open Task Manager) the grinding stops so I have no way of seeing exactly what is going on using task manager.


When I uncheck the "allow indexing service" box in the properties of my HDD it asks if I want to do this just for C:\ or for C:\, subfolders and files. Which should I be choosing. If I choose the latter I get a message saying something like "opperation could not be completed for *filname*" and it then asks to me to Ignore, Retry or Cancel. Retrying doesn't help, ignoring takes me to the next file error (there are many).

1) Yes, you do. Just leave task manager open, sorted on the cpu column. You don't have to "touch" anything - just look.
2) Disable the indexing service

[patio]

Well this pretty much confirms indexing as the culprit...
Boot to safe mode and turn it off for both partitions in there...the 2nd option you chose is the correct one.

[Quantos]

You don't have to "touch" anything - just look.

I knew a girl that used to say that.

[Broni]

Unfriendly girl, or what?

[Quantos]

She was a little friendly, but not too friendly.

I'm not sure if that makes sense.

[Broni]

Let's sat not friendly ENOUGH.....LOL

[smeezekitty]

I knew a girl that used to say that.

thats alittle creepy
i notice XP tens to have terriable hdd acess
they inproved it in vista but messed other things up
some background apps cause that