problem with Dirms & Buzzsaw - hard drive light blinks constantly

E

Euc1id

I just tried Dirms & Buzzsaw
http://www.dirms.com/
on my OEM (Compaq Presario) Windows XP Home computer as recommended in a
thread below, and now have a problem. Dirms is a freeware defragger. Buzzsaw
is a utility which runs constantly to monitor the hard drive and keep it
defragged automatically. It's supposed to work by performing its
defragging/compression operations after 1 minute of idle processor time.

Dirms seemed to work OK. I let it run overnight and my hard drive appeared
defragged thereafter -- better than the built in XP defragger which usually
leaves a lot of open spaces. However there were immediate problems with
Buzzsaw, which hung my computer a couple of times. Also it was very slow to
start/initialize after restarting my computer. It took about 2 minutes after
a computer reset for Buzzsaw to initialize itself and begin working
normally. Nevertheless it appeared to be doing its job OK thereafter. I
suspect that Buzzsaw is the cause of my problem...

The problem is that my hard drive light now blinks constantly, about once
per second. Although I've now completely removed Dirms and Buzzsaw from my
computer, apparently there's an artifact remaining -- a script, process,
modification, or timer that parses my hard drive about once per second.

I've tried most of the obvious things but can't fix it. For example: I
restored to a system restore point prior to downloading dirms & buzzsaw.
I've tried disabling my anti-virus and firewall. I've also run a complete
virus scan, a scan with SpyBot-Search & Destroy, and a SFC /SCANNOW in CMD
mode to verify that my system files are intact. There's nothing listed under
Scheduled Tasks, nor anything new in the msconfig/startup list.

Clues(?)...
Using Windows Task Manager if I select (highlight) a process in the
Processes tab list, there is a periodic flicker corresponding to the hard
drive's light blinks. Again, it's about once per second. I don't see
anything unusual in the list of running processes, but that doesn't mean
much because I might not recognize a small difference nor a new process. The
Performance tab in Windows Task Manager shows CPU usage stays at 0% when I
don't have any applications running, so at least that's normal.

Actually I'm not 100% sure if this regular hard drive blinking is normal,
but I doubt it. At least I never noticed it before I tried Dirms & Buzzsaw
earlier today. And I've never seen that sort of thing in the past except
when running certain apps that had a timer/monitor to perform certain
operations on a regular basis. So my guess is that the Buzzsaw timer/monitor
got transferred to my computer, and is still running there somewhere. How do
I get rid of it?

Thanks,
Euc1id
 
J

JOE

I gave Dirms a try and than right after that used O&O Defrag and it reported
many fragmented files so not sure which one is correct.
 
E

Euc1id

I stuck a floppy disk in the floppy drive, and the hard drive activity light
stopped blinking. End of story. Problem solved. You explain it - I can't.
:blush:)
 
J

Jensen

I just tried Dirms & Buzzsaw
http://www.dirms.com/
on my OEM (Compaq Presario) Windows XP Home computer as recommended in a
thread below, and now have a problem. Dirms is a freeware defragger. Buzzsaw
is a utility which runs constantly to monitor the hard drive and keep it
defragged automatically. It's supposed to work by performing its
defragging/compression operations after 1 minute of idle processor time.

Dirms seemed to work OK. I let it run overnight and my hard drive appeared
defragged thereafter -- better than the built in XP defragger which usually
leaves a lot of open spaces. However there were immediate problems with
Buzzsaw, which hung my computer a couple of times. Also it was very slow to
start/initialize after restarting my computer. It took about 2 minutes after
a computer reset for Buzzsaw to initialize itself and begin working
normally. Nevertheless it appeared to be doing its job OK thereafter. I
suspect that Buzzsaw is the cause of my problem...

The problem is that my hard drive light now blinks constantly, about once
per second. Although I've now completely removed Dirms and Buzzsaw from my
computer, apparently there's an artifact remaining -- a script, process,
modification, or timer that parses my hard drive about once per second.

I've tried most of the obvious things but can't fix it. For example: I
restored to a system restore point prior to downloading dirms & buzzsaw.
I've tried disabling my anti-virus and firewall. I've also run a complete
virus scan, a scan with SpyBot-Search & Destroy, and a SFC /SCANNOW in CMD
mode to verify that my system files are intact. There's nothing listed under
Scheduled Tasks, nor anything new in the msconfig/startup list.

Clues(?)...
Using Windows Task Manager if I select (highlight) a process in the
Processes tab list, there is a periodic flicker corresponding to the hard
drive's light blinks. Again, it's about once per second. I don't see
anything unusual in the list of running processes, but that doesn't mean
much because I might not recognize a small difference nor a new process. The
Performance tab in Windows Task Manager shows CPU usage stays at 0% when I
don't have any applications running, so at least that's normal.

Actually I'm not 100% sure if this regular hard drive blinking is normal,
but I doubt it. At least I never noticed it before I tried Dirms & Buzzsaw
earlier today. And I've never seen that sort of thing in the past except
when running certain apps that had a timer/monitor to perform certain
operations on a regular basis. So my guess is that the Buzzsaw timer/monitor
got transferred to my computer, and is still running there somewhere. How do
I get rid of it?

Thanks,
Euc1id
Fu7nny, but I too run Win XO home and I cannot start Dirms. It makes a
glimpse and disappear before I can see any text. Have I done anything
wrong? I also tried pgdfaxp but program says cannot run under 32
system.
Any solution? Best wishes Jorgen Jensen.
 

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