Disk always active

[WL]

Hi,
The disk busy light of my computer with WinXP installed is always flashing.
I checked Task Manager, the System Idle Process is virtually at 99% all the
time. I could not see any other process taking up any CPU.

How can I track down what is causing the disk activity?

Thanks,
Bill

 

[paulmd]

Hi,
The disk busy light of my computer with WinXP installed is always flashing.
I checked Task Manager, the System Idle Process is virtually at 99% all the
time. I could not see any other process taking up any CPU.

How can I track down what is causing the disk activity?

Thanks,
Bill

System idle means the system is idle. Not doing anything. Seeing 99% is
NORMAL.

 

[WL]

Yes, but how can I find the cause of the disk activity?

 

[T. Waters]

You will want to look in your Processes in the Task Manager. While running
your computer with minimal applications, but while experiencing the disk
activity, look at the processes that are running. Be sure they are in order
of CPU usage, by clicking the CPU "cell" in the header twice.

Looking at the processes in order of activity, Google any whose purpose you
cannot determine based on their name. If they are not part of Windows, try
terminating them one by one and see if the disk activity stops.

I have NetZero for my ISP, and there is one annoying process that tries to
scan my hard drive FAR too often, and seemingly only when I am working on
the computer. I guess it does some good, but it will have to do the good
when I am not at the computer, or I terminate the process!

Good luck, and if you have any more questions, please ask.

 

[Guest]

It flashes because it is optimizing ur hard disk.
if you want to stop this happening download and install this:
http://download.microsoft.com/downl...a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

Now load TweakUI, next click on general, now on the right hand side go at
the bottom of the page and uncheck the box optimize hard disk when idle,
finally click apply. now ur pc should be running normal.

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today WL commented courteously on the subject at hand

Hi,
The disk busy light of my computer with WinXP installed is
always flashing. I checked Task Manager, the System Idle
Process is virtually at 99% all the time. I could not see
any other process taking up any CPU.

How can I track down what is causing the disk activity?

Thanks,

Add the rest of the various I/O measures to Task Manager and
look to see what it consuming the most reads and writes or
getting the most page faults, which may indicate an impending
problem

 

[Thota Umesh]

when was the last time u defraged your system ? disk is always active if
there are to many fragments for it to retrive for all file actions. also
have a infection scan as ur cpu process is showing way high.

http://safety.live.com (online scanner)
www.windowsonecare.com (ms antivirus)
www.freeav.com (avera antivir)
www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx (windows
defender)

Hope this helps...,
Umesh Thota
www.windowsworkshop.com