hard drive spinning fast for no apparent reason

[Brian]

My hard drive has recently begun spinning for apparently no
reason. I can reboot and disable extra items in Win XP (via msconfig)
and after reboot the system idles fine for awhile. But in less than an
hour, it starts working: the hard drive starts spinning very fast and
it will keep spinning fast for hours, if I let it.

Virus scans (w/NOD 32) are fine. Spyware scans Adware, Ada-ware,
S&D Spybot, F-Secure BackLight, Registry Mechanic, Win Defender,
Malicious Software Removal Tool, all come up negative.

I need to find out how to isolate what's using up my system
resources. Googling has not turned up much.

Any help, or referral to websites for help, would be most
appreciated.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[1932]

My hard drive has recently begun spinning for apparently no
reason. I can reboot and disable extra items in Win XP (via msconfig)
and after reboot the system idles fine for awhile. But in less than an
hour, it starts working: the hard drive starts spinning very fast and
it will keep spinning fast for hours, if I let it.

Virus scans (w/NOD 32) are fine. Spyware scans Adware, Ada-ware,
S&D Spybot, F-Secure BackLight, Registry Mechanic, Win Defender,
Malicious Software Removal Tool, all come up negative.

I need to find out how to isolate what's using up my system
resources. Googling has not turned up much.

View your Task Manager when the speed up starts.
Something will be using the CPU.

 

[GT]

My hard drive has recently begun spinning for apparently no
reason. I can reboot and disable extra items in Win XP (via msconfig)
and after reboot the system idles fine for awhile. But in less than an
hour, it starts working: the hard drive starts spinning very fast and
it will keep spinning fast for hours, if I let it.

Virus scans (w/NOD 32) are fine. Spyware scans Adware, Ada-ware,
S&D Spybot, F-Secure BackLight, Registry Mechanic, Win Defender,
Malicious Software Removal Tool, all come up negative.

I need to find out how to isolate what's using up my system
resources. Googling has not turned up much.

What do you mean by 'drive starts spinning very fast'. Unless you have
turned on power saving options, then the hard drive will always spin while
the PC is on and a drive will always spin at the same speed, so you
shouldn't hear a change in note, so:
1. You mean the CD drive not hard drive?
2. You have a faulty hard disk, which starts to make a noise after a while
as it is on its last legs and you should back everything up, quickly.
3. You don't mean spinning, you mean accessing the drive (clicking noises).

If 1 or 3 is accurate, then the other post here (from 1932) offers a basic
suggestion to help you track the activity down and I'm sure there will be
others.