Hardisk activity

[kim]

Windows XP home sp2 all security updates installed.
Hi, my hard disk drive activity light
is constantly flickering when the system is idle(flicks on and off about
every 1 or 2 seconds). I temporarily disabled all the startup
items and services in msconfig and tried that then I tried booting into safe
mode but the
HDD activity still continues. None of my other machines do this. What is
causing this HDD activity is this normal ?

Thanks
Kim

 

[R. McCarty]

Windows has a number of "House Keeping" tasks it performs when the
system is idle. This can be things like processing the Layout.Ini file,
defrag
and volume indexing. It can also be an indication of Malware using your
machine for unknown purposes.

Several tools are Disk Monitor or Process Explorer from SysInternals.
Both can help to view activities running on the computer.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

 

[Unknown]

Try turning off indexing.

 

[kim]

Thanks for replying, I just tried that but it made no difference.
Kim

 

[Unknown]

Have you done a disk clean recently? Defrag? Virus scanning program
running?

 

[Plato]

Windows XP home sp2 all security updates installed.
Hi, my hard disk drive activity light
is constantly flickering when the system is idle(flicks on and off about
every 1 or 2 seconds). I temporarily disabled all the startup

Nothing to worry at all about. A computer needs a hard drive to work.
When the pc is on it needs to continually see and/or access the hard
drive, even for just simple swap/page file access. Again, no need to
worry at all...

 

[kim]

Nothing to worry at all about. A computer needs a hard drive to work.
When the pc is on it needs to continually see and/or access the hard
drive, even for just simple swap/page file access. Again, no need to
worry at all...

Ok, thanks for your replies. Unknown, I`ve run defrag, chkdsk and
temporarily disabled all starup items and services.
Plato, I`ll just leave it then, I just wonder why this machine does it but
my 3 previous ones didn`t. XP may be? I`ve just moved up from win98 an XP is
new to me.
Thanks
Kim

 

[Bob I]

Ok, thanks for your replies. Unknown, I`ve run defrag, chkdsk and
temporarily disabled all starup items and services.
Plato, I`ll just leave it then, I just wonder why this machine does it but
my 3 previous ones didn`t. XP may be? I`ve just moved up from win98 an XP is
new to me.
Thanks
Kim

Quite possible that Indexing is running, to allow faster searches.

 

[Unknown]

But, did you run Disk Clean???

Ok, thanks for your replies. Unknown, I`ve run defrag, chkdsk and
temporarily disabled all starup items and services.
Plato, I`ll just leave it then, I just wonder why this machine does it but
my 3 previous ones didn`t. XP may be? I`ve just moved up from win98 an XP
is new to me.
Thanks
Kim

 

[Unknown]

chkdsk is not the same as Clean Disk

Ok, thanks for your replies. Unknown, I`ve run defrag, chkdsk and
temporarily disabled all starup items and services.
Plato, I`ll just leave it then, I just wonder why this machine does it but
my 3 previous ones didn`t. XP may be? I`ve just moved up from win98 an XP
is new to me.
Thanks
Kim