Hard Drive access exactly once every second?

[Terry Nelson]

I've noticed that my Hard Drive is being accessed exactly once every
second. The access is very short - a very brief flicker of the HD
light once every second. Because it's so brief, I only noticed it by
chance. Here is what I've done to try and identify/eliminate the
issue:

-Unplug LAN cable
-Disable McAfee VirusScan
-Disable Zone Alarm
-Ran Spybot-Search & Destroy for Spyware
-Ran msconfig - selected Diagnostic Startup to eliminate startup
programs, system.ini, win.ini, etc.
-Ran Hard Drive Error-checking and Defrag Tools

I still get a Hard Drive access once every second! Any idea why?

I'm running WinXP Home SP1 with all critical MS Updates applied.
I also have a laptop with WinXP Home that does NOT do this.

adTHANKSvance

Terry

 

[Dark Xale]

The computer "might" be moving some information from the RAM to the Virtual
Memory on the hard drive, but that is just my guess...

 

[Al Dykes]

The computer "might" be moving some information from the RAM to the Virtual
Memory on the hard drive, but that is just my guess...

Do you run exactly the same software at home ?

One thing to do is to exit programs one at a time to see when the
clicks stop. If you've exited all your applications look in Startup
Folder and see what's there. Exit each of these programs, one at at a
time.

There are lots of other places programs can be hidden.

This could be the symptom of a memory leak. If it's daily and you've
got plenty of memory you may never notice a performance problem.

I guess it could also be sypware.

 

[Gus]

That's your antivurus working. If you disable your antivirus, it'll stop.

 

[Terry Nelson]

One thing to do is to exit programs one at a time to see when the
clicks stop. If you've exited all your applications look in Startup
Folder and see what's there. Exit each of these programs, one at at a
time.

As I stated in my original post I ran msconfig and set it to do a
diagnostic startup. This removes all startup applications. After a
clean boot with a diagnostic startup I still get HD access once a
second.

There are lots of other places programs can be hidden.

Could there still be a hidden program running even after a msconfig
diagnostic startup?

This could be the symptom of a memory leak. If it's daily and you've
got plenty of memory you may never notice a performance problem.

Don't memory leaks start after a period of time? Remember that this
HD 1 second access starts immediately after a clean boot.

I guess it could also be sypware.

As I also stated I ran Spybot-Search & Destroy to check for Spyware.

This one has me stumped. Any other ideas? Thanks!

Terry

 

[Terry Nelson]

That's your antivurus working. If you disable your antivirus, it'll stop.

As I stated in my original post I ran msconfig and set it to do a
diagnostic startup. This removes all startup applications including
my antivirus. I still get Hard Drive access once every second.

Terry

 

[Pavel]

I do not have answer to your question but I have the same flashing of the
LED lights but it does not seem to be related to actual disk access. I am
only going to guess that this flashing is somehow related to the Windows
looking for any change in removable media such as check for presence or
absence of CD disk or other IDE related hardware.

 

[Andrew Lomakin [MCP - WinXP]]

agree with pavel
i get the same issue when there's no cdrom in my CD-RW drive
insert a CD into your drive and you'll see a result