Hardrive activity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard
  • Start date Start date
R

Richard

I just purchased a new notebook that came with XP Home.
About every two minutes something accesses the hardrive
very briefly (Hour glass comes on and hard drive light
comes on} I cannot even get through Defrag. because it
says the system has changed. The only things I have
installed so far is AOL 9.0, MSN 8, some photo software
and printers. How can I find what is doing this and stop
it?

Thanks!!!!
 
Richard, rt click on MyComputer>Select
Prop>Advanced>Performance-Settings>Advanced>Virtual Memory-Change.
click on Custom Size type in 600 in both Initial and Maximum Size
boxes then Set and Ok.
 
Richard said:
I just purchased a new notebook that came with XP Home.
About every two minutes something accesses the hardrive
very briefly (Hour glass comes on and hard drive light
comes on} I cannot even get through Defrag. because it
says the system has changed. The only things I have
installed so far is AOL 9.0, MSN 8, some photo software
and printers. How can I find what is doing this and stop
it?

Thanks!!!!
Click to expand...

Prime suspects would be AOL and MSN - either or both of them checking
for online activity.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
Richard said:
I just purchased a new notebook that came with XP Home.
About every two minutes something accesses the hardrive
very briefly (Hour glass comes on and hard drive light
comes on} I cannot even get through Defrag. because it
says the system has changed. The only things I have
installed so far is AOL 9.0, MSN 8, some photo software
and printers. How can I find what is doing this and stop
it?

Thanks!!!!
Click to expand...

Use Task Manager ctrl-shift-esc to see if you can spot the process that
is doing this.

Run msconfig to see what programs are loaded at startup.

Unless you are going to use AOL and MSN, un-install them (using the
normal un-install processes).

Some laptop vendors have a program that will go look for updates (as my
Toshiba does). Turn that off if that is the offending software.

If you just purchased a laptop, it's too early to do defragging, but it
is interesting to see that this highlights the problem.

Finally ... ask the vendor. "What software did you install that is
doing this?"
 
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