weird constant hard drive access [WinXP]

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Clark
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M

Michael Clark

I recently reinstalled windows and I'm experiencing some weird hard drive
access that I can't trace back to any specific program. It happens on a
clean boot -- not having started any programs.

It goes like this: about every 500ms there's a small hard drive access (at
least that's what my hdd access light tells me). This goes on forever,
never stopping, always running.

Also, every 10 minutes on the dot, there's a very serious drive access
that's quite noisy. This takes 1-2 seconds and is quite noticeable. This
goes on forever, also.

Does anyone know of any functionality built into Microsoft products that
might cause this behavior?

Also, does anyone know of a utility with which I can monitor what processes
are accessing the disk and when?

I currently have installed:

Windows XP with everything up to date with Windows Update.
Office XP SP1
Note: I removed the Office Startup shortcut from the Startup start menu
folder. This is an old habit from when Find Fast used to be so invasive.
This didn't seem to remove the symptom though.

That's about it besides a couple games which shouldn't be doing anything
daemon-like.

Thanks for any insight you have,

Michael
 
Sorry, I should have provided this information with the original post:

Indexing service IS disabled.
 
Do you have the Indexing service turned on? That could explain it.

To see what programs/services are accessing your drives, try File Monitor
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml
it may give you way more information than you can digest - work on filtering
out known, safe things.

PC Mag had a disk activity monitor, but apparently they've not been able to
affort upgrading it from Win9x to 2K/XP. Shame.

Val
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Bringing you BeadWizard Design Software
www.beadwizard.com
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Practice safe eating -- always use condiments.
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I recently reinstalled windows and I'm experiencing some weird hard drive
access that I can't trace back to any specific program. It happens on a
clean boot -- not having started any programs.

It goes like this: about every 500ms there's a small hard drive access (at
least that's what my hdd access light tells me). This goes on forever,
never stopping, always running.

Also, every 10 minutes on the dot, there's a very serious drive access
that's quite noisy. This takes 1-2 seconds and is quite noticeable. This
goes on forever, also.

Does anyone know of any functionality built into Microsoft products that
might cause this behavior?

Also, does anyone know of a utility with which I can monitor what processes
are accessing the disk and when?

I currently have installed:

Windows XP with everything up to date with Windows Update.
Office XP SP1
Note: I removed the Office Startup shortcut from the Startup start menu
folder. This is an old habit from when Find Fast used to be so invasive.
This didn't seem to remove the symptom though.

That's about it besides a couple games which shouldn't be doing anything
daemon-like.

Thanks for any insight you have,

Michael
 
Thanks VManes, this is an interesting utility. I will probably use it in
the future! In the mean time I think I've figured out what the problem is:
It's the Make and Model of my hard drive. I searched google and got this:

=== Original Email ===
I've recently installed a Hitachi Deskstar 120GB 7200rpm hard disk. (Model
ICL35L120AVV207-0) It's on as a slave to my existing 80GB drive, on the same
IDE cable.
The problem I have is that every 10 minutes (exactly) it makes a
whirring/squeal noise for about 3-5 seconds. This happens every ten minutes
without fail - I've actually made a note of each time.
======================

===== And a Reply ====
Hi,
I've just purchased 2 Hitachi 7K250 120 GB HDD and I've the same problem
whith both drives every 10 minutes!
I call the Hitachi technical support and they say me that it's normal, it's
a sort of heads parking when the drive is idle. It's a good mesure for the
drive fitness, but not for the user one....
======================


So, looks like its just what my Hitachi disk does every 10 minutes.

However, I still have to determine what's creating the 500ms disk access.
Maybe this file utility will help me out. there.
 
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