Hard Drive constantly active

P

Peter.K

New member
Excuse me if this is an old issue, but I have not seen a solution. On a new computer, with Windows XP Home (SP2), and a few programs (MS Office 97, Photoshop 7, F-Secure Internet Security 2006, and a few others) I am being annoyed by the boot drive constantly seeking, even when I am not working on anything. I have 3 data drives in RAID 5.0 setup, but these are not being accessed.

I have File Monitor v7.02 which shows repeated actions: open, query information, close, write

I have tried a scan for viruses and spyware, but nothing was found. The drives are all Samsung Spinpoints, and the humming and rumbling are getting on my nerves. Any ideas how to stop the constant activity, and how to quieten the drives?

Peter
 
erm, seems like something is constantly scanning heavily - just as a virus scan would, but you say its constant? file monitor may be causing it...try booting in safe mode (clean boot) and see if its still making it - if not turn each starting program on reboot and s narrow it down till u find the program
 
Wirelessly posted (LG "Fusic": LG-LX550 AU-MIC-LX550/2.0 MMP/2.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

name='mrapoc' said:
erm, seems like something is constantly scanning heavily - just as a virus scan would, but you say its constant? file monitor may be causing it...try booting in safe mode (clean boot) and see if its still making it - if not turn each starting program on reboot and s narrow it down till u find the program
Click to expand...

QFT, deffo try booting in safe mode to see if thf problem persists.
 
I`m assuming it`s the pc in u`r profile.

Seeing as u`r not trying to run a new windo$e setup with only 128 or 256m, it could be any of the following reasons, plus prehaps a few more:

a] stoopid malware u`r scanner isn`t picking up.

b] busted memory.

c] completely fragmented drives. (leading to prehaps d].. )

d] for some reason u`ve got a pagefile and it`s being used due to something up with the memory, coupled with c], but honestly with 4g I`d more than likely turn all the pagefile stuff off.

e] dirty drives - although each time u boot, xp`s version of scandisk will kick in

f] a mass of video/picture/music files on the drives and they`re caching info/thumbs since the last time u brought the file lister up.

g] filesystem on one of the drives is screwy, although again I`d expect scandisk on each boot. (usually gives a dirty drive flag also)

h] are u raiding ? (Yes) and at what level (5.0) ? is one of the drives being compensated for coz it`s faulty ? (saying not)

i] old windo$e install full of crap, including web backlog n` stuff.

If u try Frag`s suggestion and the drives seem to calm down, I`d love a screenshot of u`r processes in taskmanager and/or a HiJackThis copy/paste - oo I`m drooling.

Dav0s said:
lol Rastolovich, you ahve a horrible habit of using ` instead of ', and it annoys me

back on topic :D
Click to expand...

I have to appologize in advance for this >.< It`s a trait of progressing from CBM64 keyboards, to UK Amiga keyboards, to US Amiga keyboards, to losing u`r tendant in u`r right 4th finger (so u can`t bend the end of it, caught it in a QB`s shoulderpads) and finally onto pc UK keyboards - wtf with all the key placements !! lol
 
lol Rastolovich, you ahve a horrible habit of using ` instead of ', and it annoys me

back on topic :D
 
It maybe XP's indexing service, if you start Windows Explorer, and right click on your hard drive and click properties. I would make sure that the Allow indexing service to index this drive, check box is unchecked.
 
Hello!!! It's That Man Again:p

I already made a suggestion over on the MicroMart forum, Peter:p

As one of the other guys on there suggested:

It would help a great deal if you post what specs your system is.

How much RAM have you got? Is this shared with an on-board graphics chip?

Lack of system RAM can cause hard drive thrashing because Windows would then need to access the swap file more. If your PC has an on-board graphics chip then this can take up to 128Mb of system RAM, thus making things worse, especially if you only have 256Mb of RAM, and as you've got a virus scanner running in the background, this needs to scan files in real time so that would be cacheing to hard drive all the while. Memory is the most cost effective upgrade for a PC, and can almost double the speed of a system in some cases. 512Mb can be bought for the price of a game these days.

Hope that little lot helps (again):D
 
Dav0s said:
lol Rastolovich, you ahve a horrible habit of using ` instead of ', and it annoys me

back on topic :D
Click to expand...

Same... makes it look like you put a space before and after the apostrophe...
 
Right then Sticky Mick (where did that moniker come from!). Just to clarify: I have a newly built computer, only in use for 3 days. I work a lot with Photoshop so went for the fastest I could afford. This has Core Duo E6700, with 4 Gig OCZ PC7200 memory, and separate boot drive, with a RAID 5 for data.

Cant fault the rig on speed, and it is very quiet except for the constant chuntering of the boot drive, and the resonance of the three RAIDs. I have set the power management to stop hard drives after 3 minutes when idle, and then the RAIDs stop, with just the boot running. (quieter when not accessing data). I need to find a way of isolating the reverberance of the drives.

I have installed WinPatrol, and have a screen showing all of applications running. I can kill each in turn but this is a long job, so was hoping somebody had come accross this before. My suspicion is that F-Secure is the culprit, because I had this on my previous (Win 98SE) setup, and had same activity with the boot drive there.

Over to you
 
Sounds like you've found the problem yourself mate... Have you tried disabling/uninstalling it to see if the problem goes away? That would be my first order of business if I were you.

And have you tried booting in safe mode yet?
 
I`ve never been turned on by F-Secure tbh. If it is infact causing u issues, it`s not going to be a loss to get rid of it.

Could simply be u`r using an old version of it. I know Symantec stuff (*spit) that is old and installed on a new machine spends half it`s time chugging around. Probably coz they want u to phone them and the automatic reply is "U need to buy the newest version" - hey it`s probably built into the code to slow the pc down - wouldn`t put it past them. Very Bill Gates-esq.
 
Hi Peter.

With 4Gig of RAM we now know that's not the problem. (Got that info off the other forum, so thanks for posting that.) Now that you've mentioned about your Win98 machine doing the same with F-Secure installed, I'll side with FragTek & Rastalovich.

Get rid of it and try AVG or AntiVir they're both available as freeware from:

AVG= http://www.avgvirusfree.co.uk/

AntiVir= http://www.free-av.com/

Hope you sort it eventually.

Nice rig BTW;)

With regards to my moniker. All is explained on the other forum.
 
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