I need some answers to a question, actually an answer or opinion. I have a
dual boot machine XP/Vista Home Prem. , This is a pretty fast machine with
plenty of horsepower to run Vista. Gigabyte Mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ chip,
4gb OCZ 800mhz. RAM, plenty of cooling and I'm not overclocking the processor
or anything like that. During system IDLE the HD light is constantly flashing
and I can hear it reading the HD. I have a IDE 160GB primary HD cut in half
and each partition has plenty of extra space after all software was
installed. A secondary SATA 300mbs 320 GB drive for DATA. It did not do this
after I initially installed both systems and got them up and running using
Vistas boot manager with Vista as the default.
I just need to know where to start looking. I have had this problem before
but only when I did not have enough system resources on the HD or RAM when I
had a dual boot OS/2 / Windows 95 machine long ago. OS/2 was just too much
for it and it constantly read the HD, I assume reading and writing to the
sys.pagefile due to lack of enough memory.
Anyone know where to start looking with this much information? If you need
to know all of the software installed I can get that together with no problem.
Thanks In Advance for the help, Sid
[email]saxonsystems@comcast.net[/email]
--
Sid
"The farce be with you"

The hard drive is working constantly because Vista is indexing the
drive. It should stop after a few days, depending on how many files you
have. It makes searches a lot faster. But, initially, you will notice a
lot of hard drive activity.

--
Dustin Harper
[email]dharper@vistarip.com[/email]
[url]http://www.vistarip.com[/url]


Sid wrote:[color=blue]
> I need some answers to a question, actually an answer or opinion. I have a
> dual boot machine XP/Vista Home Prem. , This is a pretty fast machine with
> plenty of horsepower to run Vista. Gigabyte Mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ chip,
> 4gb OCZ 800mhz. RAM, plenty of cooling and I'm not overclocking the processor
> or anything like that. During system IDLE the HD light is constantly flashing
> and I can hear it reading the HD. I have a IDE 160GB primary HD cut in half
> and each partition has plenty of extra space after all software was
> installed. A secondary SATA 300mbs 320 GB drive for DATA. It did not do this
> after I initially installed both systems and got them up and running using
> Vistas boot manager with Vista as the default.
> I just need to know where to start looking. I have had this problem before
> but only when I did not have enough system resources on the HD or RAM when I
> had a dual boot OS/2 / Windows 95 machine long ago. OS/2 was just too much
> for it and it constantly read the HD, I assume reading and writing to the
> sys.pagefile due to lack of enough memory.
> Anyone know where to start looking with this much information? If you need
> to know all of the software installed I can get that together with no problem.
> Thanks In Advance for the help, Sid
> [email]saxonsystems@comcast.net[/email][/color]

Thanks for the reply. I have been running Vista on the machine for a few
months. Would that still be what is happening?
I thought about turning indexing services off. So I did anhd it cut down
most of it. Now it is just a short flash about every 1 to 2 sec.
-Sid

"Dustin Harper" wrote:
[color=blue]
> The hard drive is working constantly because Vista is indexing the
> drive. It should stop after a few days, depending on how many files you
> have. It makes searches a lot faster. But, initially, you will notice a
> lot of hard drive activity.
>
> --
> Dustin Harper
> [email]dharper@vistarip.com[/email]
> [url]http://www.vistarip.com[/url]
>
>
> Sid wrote:[color=green]
> > I need some answers to a question, actually an answer or opinion. I have a
> > dual boot machine XP/Vista Home Prem. , This is a pretty fast machine with
> > plenty of horsepower to run Vista. Gigabyte Mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ chip,
> > 4gb OCZ 800mhz. RAM, plenty of cooling and I'm not overclocking the processor
> > or anything like that. During system IDLE the HD light is constantly flashing
> > and I can hear it reading the HD. I have a IDE 160GB primary HD cut in half
> > and each partition has plenty of extra space after all software was
> > installed. A secondary SATA 300mbs 320 GB drive for DATA. It did not do this
> > after I initially installed both systems and got them up and running using
> > Vistas boot manager with Vista as the default.
> > I just need to know where to start looking. I have had this problem before
> > but only when I did not have enough system resources on the HD or RAM when I
> > had a dual boot OS/2 / Windows 95 machine long ago. OS/2 was just too much
> > for it and it constantly read the HD, I assume reading and writing to the
> > sys.pagefile due to lack of enough memory.
> > Anyone know where to start looking with this much information? If you need
> > to know all of the software installed I can get that together with no problem.
> > Thanks In Advance for the help, Sid
> > [email]saxonsystems@comcast.net[/email][/color]
>[/color]

On Nov 13, 3:00 am, Sid Saxon <SidSa...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote:[color=blue]
> Thanks for the reply. I have been running Vista on the machine for a few
> months. Would that still be what is happening?
> I thought about turning indexing services off. So I did anhd it cut down
> most of it. Now it is just a short flash about every 1 to 2 sec.
> -Sid
>
>
>
> "Dustin Harper" wrote:[color=green]
> > The hard drive is working constantly because Vista is indexing the
> > drive. It should stop after a few days, depending on how many files you
> > have. It makes searches a lot faster. But, initially, you will notice a
> > lot of hard drive activity.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > --
> > Dustin Harper
> > dhar...@vistarip.com
> >[url]http://www.vistarip.com[/url][/color]
>[color=green]
> > Sid wrote:[color=darkred]
> > > I need some answers to a question, actually an answer or opinion. I have a
> > > dual boot machine XP/Vista Home Prem. , This is a pretty fast machine with
> > > plenty of horsepower to run Vista. Gigabyte Mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ chip,
> > > 4gb OCZ 800mhz. RAM, plenty of cooling and I'm not overclocking the processor
> > > or anything like that. During system IDLE the HD light is constantly flashing
> > > and I can hear it reading the HD. I have a IDE 160GB primary HD cut in half
> > > and each partition has plenty of extra space after all software was
> > > installed. A secondary SATA 300mbs 320 GB drive for DATA. It did not do this
> > > after I initially installed both systems and got them up and running using
> > > Vistas boot manager with Vista as the default.
> > > I just need to know where to start looking. I have had this problem before
> > > but only when I did not have enough system resources on the HD or RAM when I
> > > had a dual boot OS/2 / Windows 95 machine long ago. OS/2 was just too much
> > > for it and it constantly read the HD, I assume reading and writing to the
> > > sys.pagefile due to lack of enough memory.
> > > Anyone know where to start looking with this much information? If you need
> > > to know all of the software installed I can get that together with no problem.
> > > Thanks In Advance for the help, Sid
> > > saxonsyst...@comcast.net- Hide quoted text -[/color][/color]
>
> - Show quoted text -[/color]

You might also try stopping the Superfetch service. Set it to manual
start instead of automatic.

Sid,
I have this same situation on a fresh install of XP Pro - no drivers or any
new software yet. I've haven't seen this on any of the workstations at work.
It looks like many people have this problem, by looking at other posts.
Did you find a way to stop the HDD writes?

Justin

"Sid Saxon" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Thanks for the reply. I have been running Vista on the machine for a few
> months. Would that still be what is happening?
> I thought about turning indexing services off. So I did anhd it cut down
> most of it. Now it is just a short flash about every 1 to 2 sec.
> -Sid
>
> "Dustin Harper" wrote:
>[color=green]
> > The hard drive is working constantly because Vista is indexing the
> > drive. It should stop after a few days, depending on how many files you
> > have. It makes searches a lot faster. But, initially, you will notice a
> > lot of hard drive activity.
> >
> > --
> > Dustin Harper
> > [email]dharper@vistarip.com[/email]
> > [url]http://www.vistarip.com[/url]
> >
> >
> > Sid wrote:[color=darkred]
> > > I need some answers to a question, actually an answer or opinion. I have a
> > > dual boot machine XP/Vista Home Prem. , This is a pretty fast machine with
> > > plenty of horsepower to run Vista. Gigabyte Mobo, Athlon 64 X2 4400+ chip,
> > > 4gb OCZ 800mhz. RAM, plenty of cooling and I'm not overclocking the processor
> > > or anything like that. During system IDLE the HD light is constantly flashing
> > > and I can hear it reading the HD. I have a IDE 160GB primary HD cut in half
> > > and each partition has plenty of extra space after all software was
> > > installed. A secondary SATA 300mbs 320 GB drive for DATA. It did not do this
> > > after I initially installed both systems and got them up and running using
> > > Vistas boot manager with Vista as the default.
> > > I just need to know where to start looking. I have had this problem before
> > > but only when I did not have enough system resources on the HD or RAM when I
> > > had a dual boot OS/2 / Windows 95 machine long ago. OS/2 was just too much
> > > for it and it constantly read the HD, I assume reading and writing to the
> > > sys.pagefile due to lack of enough memory.
> > > Anyone know where to start looking with this much information? If you need
> > > to know all of the software installed I can get that together with no problem.
> > > Thanks In Advance for the help, Sid
> > > [email]saxonsystems@comcast.net[/email][/color]
> >[/color][/color]

I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.

What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?


--
4evrnyt
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You don't stop it!

Vista is nearly always doing something. It is much easier to get used to it.
It is not particularly harmful, and mostly it is beneficial. It may be
managing a paging file, or it may be tracking program usage so that most
used programs will be loaded on the fastest part of the disk during defrag,
it may be defragging, or perhaps Windows Defender is running, or the upgrade
manager, or the reliability tracking indicator, or it may be making shadow
copies, or phoning home, or checking for updates, or checking for problem
solutions, or.... You get the idea! It may not even be Vista running, as
today nearly every program wants to check for updates.

Instead of stopping what you are doing to run all these utilities, Vista
runs them in the background with no intervention on your part and also
almost no impact on the processor, and you go on about your business with no
worries.


"4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=blue]
>
> I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>
> What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>
>
> --
> 4evrnyt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>
> [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>[/color]

On another point, you generally run a 64 bit version for improved
performance. Turning off prefetch is a sure way to slow down the system. If
you are performance oriented, enable it.

Have fun.


"4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=blue]
>
> I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>
> What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>
>
> --
> 4evrnyt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>
> [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>[/color]

How much memory do you have? If you have 2GB or less then I am not
surprised the hard drive runs constantly and it still will no matter what
you turn off. It is paging to virtual memory on the hard drive. The
solution is to add more memory so that the system does not have to keep
moving things back and forth.

"4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=blue]
>
> I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>
> What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>
>
> --
> 4evrnyt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>
> [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>[/color]

3gb.

it usually starts when the computer is just sitting idle. Internet
Explorer doesnt' seem to interrupt it but If I start a game it usually
stops. If I go into sleep mode, the hard drive will continue to run
almost immediately after waking it up. i also have turned off
powerboost.
Colin Barnhorst;3727131 Wrote:[color=blue]
> How much memory do you have? If you have 2GB or less then I am not
> surprised the hard drive runs constantly and it still will no matter
> what
> you turn off. It is paging to virtual memory on the hard drive. The
> solution is to add more memory so that the system does not have to
> keep
> moving things back and forth.
>
> "4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
> news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=green]
> >
> > I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> > indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> > time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
> >
> > What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
> >
> >
> > --
> > 4evrnyt
> >[/color]
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------[color=green]
> > 4evrnyt's Profile:[/color]
> [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url][color=green]
> > View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
> >
> > [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
> >[/color][/color]


--
4evrnyt
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Use the Performance and Reliability Monitor in Adminstrative Tools to get an
idea of what is going on with the drive activity. This gave me useful info
and a suggested course to take in a similar situation. I found out that the
system was spending excessive time writing to the page file and followed the
suggestion in the report.

"4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399r7c@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:4evrnyt.399r7c@DoNotSpam.com...[color=blue]
>
> 3gb.
>
> it usually starts when the computer is just sitting idle. Internet
> Explorer doesnt' seem to interrupt it but If I start a game it usually
> stops. If I go into sleep mode, the hard drive will continue to run
> almost immediately after waking it up. i also have turned off
> powerboost.
> Colin Barnhorst;3727131 Wrote:[color=green]
>> How much memory do you have? If you have 2GB or less then I am not
>> surprised the hard drive runs constantly and it still will no matter
>> what
>> you turn off. It is paging to virtual memory on the hard drive. The
>> solution is to add more memory so that the system does not have to
>> keep
>> moving things back and forth.
>>
>> "4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
>> news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=darkred]
>> >
>> > I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
>> > indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
>> > time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>> >
>> > What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > 4evrnyt
>> >[/color]
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------[color=darkred]
>> > 4evrnyt's Profile:[/color]
>> [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url][color=darkred]
>> > View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>> >
>> > [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>> >[/color][/color]
>
>
> --
> 4evrnyt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>
> [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>[/color]

I've seen McAffee do this on my computer from time to time. Regardless
though, you can find out by using something to see what's using resources. A
good example: At Sysinternals.com you can get Process Explorer. It's a
great little utility to see what's going on. Try it, let us know...
--
-me.
Let this forum know if this helps or if you figure out the problem, so
others can benefit.



"Colin Barnhorst" wrote:
[color=blue]
> Use the Performance and Reliability Monitor in Adminstrative Tools to get an
> idea of what is going on with the drive activity. This gave me useful info
> and a suggested course to take in a similar situation. I found out that the
> system was spending excessive time writing to the page file and followed the
> suggestion in the report.
>
> "4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399r7c@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
> news:4evrnyt.399r7c@DoNotSpam.com...[color=green]
> >
> > 3gb.
> >
> > it usually starts when the computer is just sitting idle. Internet
> > Explorer doesnt' seem to interrupt it but If I start a game it usually
> > stops. If I go into sleep mode, the hard drive will continue to run
> > almost immediately after waking it up. i also have turned off
> > powerboost.
> > Colin Barnhorst;3727131 Wrote:[color=darkred]
> >> How much memory do you have? If you have 2GB or less then I am not
> >> surprised the hard drive runs constantly and it still will no matter
> >> what
> >> you turn off. It is paging to virtual memory on the hard drive. The
> >> solution is to add more memory so that the system does not have to
> >> keep
> >> moving things back and forth.
> >>
> >> "4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
> >> news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...
> >> >
> >> > I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> >> > indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> >> > time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
> >> >
> >> > What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > 4evrnyt
> >> >
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > 4evrnyt's Profile:
> >> [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> >> > View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
> >> >
> >> > [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
> >> >[/color]
> >
> >
> > --
> > 4evrnyt
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
> > View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
> >
> > [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
> >[/color]
>[/color]

I upgraded my Acer Aspire from 1Gig to 2 Gig when I purchased it and have
not had any low memory issues that I can detect. I guess it depends what
software you run and how memory intensive the software is. But it is amazing
how much memory you need considering my first 386 computer only had 1MB and
I thought upgrading to 2MB was cutting edge!

James
"Colin Barnhorst" <c.barnhorst@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:54FD373C-8992-4377-B62C-885578F52EC8@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
> How much memory do you have? If you have 2GB or less then I am not
> surprised the hard drive runs constantly and it still will no matter what
> you turn off. It is paging to virtual memory on the hard drive. The
> solution is to add more memory so that the system does not have to keep
> moving things back and forth.
>
> "4evrnyt" <4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
> news:4evrnyt.399dbe@DoNotSpam.com...[color=green]
>>
>> I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
>> indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
>> time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>>
>> What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>>
>>
>> --
>> 4evrnyt
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 4evrnyt's Profile: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=48926[/url]
>> View this thread: [url]http://forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=846798[/url]
>>
>> [url]http://forums.techarena.in[/url]
>>[/color]
>[/color]

Close all applications. Run Perfmon. Click on Disk. Click on disk
Write. If your system sits "idle" long enough you should eventually
see disk write drop off to nothing. If not, look to see what is causing
disk IO. Turning off Superfetch and indexing on your fixed disk
drive(s) kills lots of disk IO without effecting system performance.

The "hard drive light" can indicate more than just fixed disk activity.
If your case IO light keeps blinking about once a second after disk
write activity stops then there is no disk activity - the problem may be
the SATA/IDE chipset IO polling related to your CD/DVD drive. If this
is the case disconnect the SATA or IDE connection to your CD/DVD drive.
Does this reduce of eliminate "apparent" IO activity?

What is your motherboard brand/model and the SATA/IDE chipset(s) on the
motherboard?


4evrnyt wrote:[color=blue]
> I am having the same issue with Vista 64-bit but I've turned off
> indexing and superfetch and the hard drive is still running all the
> time when I'm not doing anything on the computer.
>
> What is there to disable to get it to stop doing this?
>
>[/color]

It is the CD or DVD ROM.

Try going to the Safely Remove hardware (even though it may not be a
usb) and do Stop on the CD or DVD listed.

If you don't see it there and want to verify that this is indeed it,
just disconnect the ribbon cable, reboot. You'll notice the blinking is
gone.

I don't know exactly why--I think on some OS's and some DVD/CD units,
the os constantly checks it--it might be as the DVD unit gets
older--i've had this happen twice--always after about a year from when I
got the dvd unit.
--Jim


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