Hard drive runs non-stop for 30 seconds when deleting 1 small file

[t22harris]

Lately it seems that my hard drive runs for a very long time (I can hear it
chattering) when ever I delete even a single small file. The mouse and
keyboard are locked up until it finishes. This is very annoying behavior.
What is the OS doing?

I have Windows XP SP3 and a 300GByte hard drive with 41% free. System Admin
says that the drive does not need to be defragmented. I have 2 GBytes of RAM
installed and Task Manager typically says that over 1GBytes is available.
Typically I only have 8-12 processes open for "User Name" and I know what
each of those are.

 

[R. McCarty]

Defrag status ? If other peripherals halt or stutter then the disk I/O is
peaking the CPU/System load. You should check/verify that the XP
volume is "Clean". When data becomes inconsistent the drive's status
gets marked as Dirty. From within a Command Prompt window you
need to use Chkdsk C:. The system will perform a 3 phase check &
give you a summary. If necessary, a more comprehensive Chkdsk /R
is required
NOTE: Never perform Chkdsk with /R or /F UNLESS your data is
backed up and verified.

Another possibility is that the operating mode of the disk controller
has stepped back (down) to a less than optimal mode. Windows
does this when operations cause errors to be logged. Unfortunately
once errors cease XP leaves the controller mode set to a lower value.

You also may want to examine the system loading with AutoRuns. A
tool from SysInternals/Microsoft.

 

[Howard Kaikow]

Lately it seems that my hard drive runs for a very long time (I can hear it
chattering) when ever I delete even a single small file. The mouse and
keyboard are locked up until it finishes. This is very annoying behavior.
What is the OS doing?

I have Windows XP SP3 and a 300GByte hard drive with 41% free. System Admin
says that the drive does not need to be defragmented. I have 2 GBytes of RAM
installed and Task Manager typically says that over 1GBytes is available.
Typically I only have 8-12 processes open for "User Name" and I know what
each of those are.

Try getting a good defrag program such as Perfect Disk.
It should do a better analysis of the drive, and a better job of defragging.

 

[Tim Meddick]

t22harris,
Either; 1). Open Task Manager again and press on the column
heading named 'Mem Usage' (if NOT already listed get it by going to the top
menu and choosing View > Select Columns and put a tick in the appropriate
box) This will show you which of your processes are eating up resources
(when arranged in order most active at the top). The topmost item will
undoubtedly be the one causing the most disk activity. or 2). Download
'Process Explorer' which will do the same thing only with a lot more detail
and options for investigating what the process is doing. Process Explorer
is available at:

http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer.zip

 

[olfart]

Lately it seems that my hard drive runs for a very long time (I can hear
it
chattering) when ever I delete even a single small file. The mouse and
keyboard are locked up until it finishes. This is very annoying behavior.
What is the OS doing?

I have Windows XP SP3 and a 300GByte hard drive with 41% free. System
Admin
says that the drive does not need to be defragmented. I have 2 GBytes of
RAM
installed and Task Manager typically says that over 1GBytes is available.
Typically I only have 8-12 processes open for "User Name" and I know what
each of those are.

If you can hear the HD chattering it may be ready to die. Before running any
checks on it I would backup any important files to another HD or optical
media.

 

[HeyBub]

Lately it seems that my hard drive runs for a very long time (I can
hear it chattering) when ever I delete even a single small file. The
mouse and keyboard are locked up until it finishes. This is very
annoying behavior. What is the OS doing?

You "can hear it chattering?"

When a disk begins failing, it may detect write (or read) errors. But that's
not the end of it. On it's own the hardware will retry the requested
operation dozens if not hundreds of times before it calls it quits and
reports the unrecoverable error to the software.

For example, the software says "write these data on track 200, sector 7".
The hardware responds by flinging the head out to where it thinks track 200
should be and waits for the track identifier record to pass under the head.
The track identifier is finally read and, lo and behold, it says "Hi, I'm
track 207" Damn! At this point, several techniques can occur, but one is
this: The heads retract back to the home position and start over. This time
the track identifier say "Buenos taco! I'm track 206!" Oh, fudge.

This kind of sillines can take place literally thousands of times.

The software, not completely believing the hardware, says "try again and
this time do it right!" and the sequence repeats, eventually falling out a
hole in the side of the spaceship.

You can use this as an excuse to buy a larger, faster drive.

 

[Tim Meddick]

But seriously, he might mean simply an amount of disk activity more than
normal.
Several application take hold of my hard-drive soon after booting, one is
MsMpEng.exe associated with 'Windows Defender' another is my anti-virus
program. I consider these to be reasonably essential on my system, so I put
up with them. However, recently I uninstalled 'Windows Live Desktop Search'
because it too would virtually 'lock' the hard-drive in an update of it's
database of files on my local drive every boot. This I considered
non-essential so I got rid. I was only able to identify what program was
causing all the disk activity by using Task Manager (and more recently
Process Explorer). Disks vary allot in the amount of noise they produce, so
it could well be a 'normal' noise but an abnormal amount of activity...

 

[JS]

Start by reading your hard disk S.M.A.R.T. status.
SpeedFan has an online analysis feature for hard drives.
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

HD Tune, provides drive SMART info and has an option to test your drive.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Check what going on behind the scenes.
Use Process Monitor to track the problem.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

Be aware that there may be other activity which occurs all the
time and you will need to use the filter capability in Process Monitor
to eliminate the constant background activity before you delete
a test file and you isolate the culprit.

 

[Tim Meddick]

I didn't read the bit "about deleting a single file" causing it.
(Idiot that I am - please feel free to jump on the band wagon)
It probably IS a hard-drive on it's way out!