This is for XP, sp3.

I've just installed XP-sp3 on a new motherboard and I'm in the process
of turning off a lot of garbage services and in general optimizing it.

I've turned off indexing service as well as the cache-thing that's
supposed to make it boot-up faster. The system does auto-login as the
default user (with admin privledges) just the way I like it. So at
power-up within about a minute I have the desktop up in classic mode.

I notice that if I do nothing - just let it start up and sit there, I'll
see the hard-drive light pulse on about once per second - and it will
just to this indefinately.

It bugs my ass and I'd like to know what's goosing the drive like this.

Is there any utility or program that can tell me what's accessing the
drive?

Try this:

<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645>

Good luck.




XP Guy wrote:
> This is for XP, sp3.
>
> I've just installed XP-sp3 on a new motherboard and I'm in the process
> of turning off a lot of garbage services and in general optimizing it.
>
> I've turned off indexing service as well as the cache-thing that's
> supposed to make it boot-up faster. The system does auto-login as the
> default user (with admin privledges) just the way I like it. So at
> power-up within about a minute I have the desktop up in classic mode.
>
> I notice that if I do nothing - just let it start up and sit there, I'll
> see the hard-drive light pulse on about once per second - and it will
> just to this indefinately.
>
> It bugs my ass and I'd like to know what's goosing the drive like this.
>
> Is there any utility or program that can tell me what's accessing the
> drive?
>

--

Al Sparber - PVII
http://www.projectseven.com
Dreamweaver Menus | Galleries | Widgets

XP Guy wrote:

> Is there any utility or program that can tell me what's accessing the
> drive?

The old Systernals Filemon has been replaced by Process Monitor, it seems.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896642

On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 18:00:54 -0800, Fishface wrote:

> XP Guy wrote:
>
>> Is there any utility or program that can tell me what's accessing the
>> drive?
>
> The old Systernals Filemon has been replaced by Process Monitor, it seems.
> http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s...rnals/bb896642

Also Sysinternals Process Explorer. Enabling the columns for I/O Read bytes,
I/O Write Bytes and Disk Write Bytes might show you that one iteration of
svchost.exe is accessing the disk about once a second in the I/O columns and
that System also Writes a lot (which is reasonable).
The svchost in question is the one that has about 15+ items in it (there's
float-over info for each entry in the LH column.
I don't know why this happens but one thing I have found out is that it does
so only when connected to the interwebs.
--
Peter.
The gods will stay away
whilst religions hold sway

If it is a Dell XPS 630i, the disc light flashes as you describe, even if
nothing is accessing the drive. That has never been resolved and the only
suggestion is a bit of black sticky tape. :-) Maybe other models do that
too?

"XP Guy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> This is for XP, sp3.
>
> I've just installed XP-sp3 on a new motherboard and I'm in the process
> of turning off a lot of garbage services and in general optimizing it.
>
> I've turned off indexing service as well as the cache-thing that's
> supposed to make it boot-up faster. The system does auto-login as the
> default user (with admin privledges) just the way I like it. So at
> power-up within about a minute I have the desktop up in classic mode.
>
> I notice that if I do nothing - just let it start up and sit there, I'll
> see the hard-drive light pulse on about once per second - and it will
> just to this indefinately.
>
> It bugs my ass and I'd like to know what's goosing the drive like this.
>
> Is there any utility or program that can tell me what's accessing the
> drive?

| I notice that if I do nothing - just let it start up and sit there, I'll
| see the hard-drive light pulse on about once per second -

I've had the same trouble and got curious. I had thought the problem
was Online Armor's odd habit of looking for a file that doesn't exist
every few seconds. But I tried turing of OA and running both Filemon
and Procmon. With no activity at all the light keeps blinking. (I have
disabled just about anything that might run systematically in the
background.)

After doing some searching online I found a lot of other people
describing the same thing. Some had stopped it by stopping
Windows from checking the CD/DVD drive for media. (They removed
the drive in Device Manager and the blinking stopped.) I'm guessing
it may just be part of how some motherboards work. This is the
first time I've seen the behavior. It's annoying, since that light should
only indicate hard disk activity, but it seems to be harmless. If you
test for running processes and find nothing running then there's
apparently nothing more to be done.

Mayayana wrote:
> | I notice that if I do nothing - just let it start up and sit there, I'll
> | see the hard-drive light pulse on about once per second -
>
> I've had the same trouble and got curious. I had thought the problem
> was Online Armor's odd habit of looking for a file that doesn't exist
> every few seconds. But I tried turing of OA and running both Filemon
> and Procmon. With no activity at all the light keeps blinking. (I have
> disabled just about anything that might run systematically in the
> background.)

I'm reading this thread with mounting amazement. I have never, ever,
seen an installation of WinXP that did *not* constantly access the boot
drive. All WinXP installations I've seen, the boot drive is constantly
being accessed (once per second or more often). I've never seen the boot
drive power off. When looking at the SMART data, the Start/Stop Count is
about the same as the Power Cycle Count; the Power Off Retract Count is
very close to 0 (if non-zero). The additional (non-boot) drives are not
accessed, and they may power off (as per power manager settings), but
the boot drive - never. The drive access light is, of course, always
blinking. As far as I've been able to determine, this is because of UPnP.


> After doing some searching online I found a lot of other people
> describing the same thing. Some had stopped it by stopping
> Windows from checking the CD/DVD drive for media. (They removed
> the drive in Device Manager and the blinking stopped.) I'm guessing
> it may just be part of how some motherboards work. This is the
> first time I've seen the behavior. It's annoying, since that light should
> only indicate hard disk activity, but it seems to be harmless. If you
> test for running processes and find nothing running then there's
> apparently nothing more to be done.

As far as I've seen, it *does* indicate disk activity, since XP
accesses the disk all the time. Am I missing something?

--
You'd be crazy to e-mail me with the crazy. But leave the div alone.
*
Whoever bans a book, shall be banished. Whoever burns a book, shall burn.

| I'm reading this thread with mounting amazement. I have never, ever,
| seen an installation of WinXP that did *not* constantly access the boot
| drive. All WinXP installations I've seen, the boot drive is constantly
| being accessed (once per second or more often). I've never seen the boot
| drive power off. When looking at the SMART data, the Start/Stop Count is
| about the same as the Power Cycle Count; the Power Off Retract Count is
| very close to 0 (if non-zero). The additional (non-boot) drives are not
| accessed, and they may power off (as per power manager settings), but
| the boot drive - never. The drive access light is, of course, always
| blinking. As far as I've been able to determine, this is because of UPnP.
|

I have UPnP disabled, as I'm not networked. I have
most services disabled. (I even disable the critical Windows
Time because I don't feel that I need atomic clock accuracy
while reporting in to Microsoft on a regular basis.
I have System File Protection killed, along with PC Health.
I have indexing disabled. System Restore disabled. Backup
nonsense disabled. Windows Update disabled. I have no
service running, that I know of, that needs to act when it's
not called upon.

I think that what you're saying makes sense. That's why
we've all been talking about excess services. But I've had
XP on other machines without constant blinking. And while
XP is a bloated hog in its default configuration, it's quite lean
and has no need to access the disk once it's been cleaned
up. (We're not talking about the disk powering down. Just
no programmatic disk access when there's no activity. My
understanding is that the disk light indicates current disk
access.)

If I don't do anything, and I shut down my firewall, I see
nohing happening in Procmon, which is as it should be. But
the disk light keeps blinking. That, and what I've found online,
make me wonder if maybe there's been a change in motherboard
designs. Maybe there's even a way to fix the problem. But
I don't know any more than that.

On 23 Dec 2011, "Mayayana" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

> (I even disable the critical Windows Time because I don't feel
> that I need atomic clock accuracy while reporting in to Microsoft
> on a regular basis.

There are scads of other time servers in the world. You don't have
to use Microsoft's. I think they even supply time.nist.gov as an
alternative.

Nil wrote:
> On 23 Dec 2011, "Mayayana" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
>
>> (I even disable the critical Windows Time because I don't feel
>> that I need atomic clock accuracy while reporting in to Microsoft
>> on a regular basis.
>
> There are scads of other time servers in the world. You don't have
> to use Microsoft's. I think they even supply time.nist.gov as an
> alternative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntp_pool

http://www.pool.ntp.org/en/

For example, my little router box, that serves to distribute
Internet in the house, is set to use "pool.ntp.org" to get the
time (the router time stamps log entries with accurate time stamps).
The pool contains hundreds of servers around the world, contributed
by volunteers for the purpose.

So if you're being logged, you're being logged by a
guy in Zimbabwe :-)

Paul