On Aug 13, 7:03*pm, ship <ship...******.com> wrote:
> I am also suspicious of the new Windows Search which I can't quite see
> how to switch off!
>
> Ship

I had a similar problem a sometime back, and it was because the
harddisks had slipped down into "PIO" memory access, rather than the
normal DMA. You can check this by right-clicking "My computer" >>
Hardware > Device Manager > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller:and then Primary
IDE channel and Secondary IDE channel. The slipping into PIO happens
usually because of disk error, including too long a spin-up time.