Vista many non-responding processes

On several occasions in the first days of my running vista, I have
encountered non-responding processes. During these occasions I have seen
the disk activity light on my notebook be on continuously. The resource
monitor for the disk showed me that it was writing from a Image System,
pid=4 and c:\System Volume Information\{38088 ...... }{.....}
Later I found the resource monitor for the disk indicating a svchost was
reading lots of data (1,200,000 MBps).
Help! I am a vista rookie!
Forced into this path by a failed motherboard on windows xp.

Brian.
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Win XP to vista voyager