Computer hard drive question

E

El_Guapo

500+ Posts
I've noticed lately that my computer's hard drive seems to constantly be active. I don't recall this being the case before. When I'm just surfing or reading Hornfans or whatever it's constantly spinning and I can hear it working. In the past it would be quiet and just power up maybe when I downloaded something or went to a new site or retrieved a file or whatever. Is this normal? Is there something I need to check or look for? I run Norton and have the Windows Firefall set but is it possible I've been targeted as one of those server computers that unknowingly spreads porn across the world (in which case I need to know how to intercept it for myself, obviously).

Thanks in advance.
 
If it doesn't seem to be affecting system performance, it may not be a big deal. Although, it is unnecessary wear and tear on the drive itself, so it should be avoided if possible. There are a few possiblities as to what is going on.

1. Your computer has downloaded some spyware/adware. Use any or all of the popular tools (Adaware, Spybot, MS AntiSpyware, SpywareBlaster, etc.) to check for and try to get rid of it.

2. The Windows Indexing Service is active. This uses spare CPU cycles to index your hard drive, making file searches go faster. This is the most likely possibility (I think XP's default has this enabled), and it is not usually worth the performance decrease. To disable it, right-click on My Computer and click Manage. Expand the "Services and Applications" group, click Services, and then scroll down to Indexing Service and double-click it. Change the startup type to Disabled and click the Stop button, and then OK out.

3. System Restore also uses spare CPU cycles to create restore points. If you're relatively confident in the stability of your computer, you can disable this as well with little incident. Follow the same procedure above, except look for "System Restore Service". It can also be disabled from the System Restore tab at My Computer -> Properties.

4. You are running some memory-intensive programs and the system is having to make extra use of the page file on the hard drive. Probably wouldn't hurt to drop in some more RAM into your system if none of the above suggestions solve the problem.

5. Your hard drive is fragmented. Run Norton SpeedDisk or Windows' defrag tool to rearrange the data on the physical disk.

6. Your browser's cache is full and is having to delete files to add more. Try emptying the cache.
 
my hard drive is no more. when i come to think of it, my computer was kind of being funny about a week or so before it crashed. it would take longer for stuff to open up. i still had over half of my memory space left. ****, i dont know



is leavin your computer on constantly bad for the hardrive???
 
wherzwaldo -

Thanks for the tips. I'm gonna try them one at a time and see if I can get this thing to slow down.

I'm running the freeware version of Spybot and it's detecting no problems. Maybe I should go ahead and pay for something else?

One more question if you don't mind. I got this system from Laboratory Computers about 6 months ago. I seem to recall the tech there recommending that I go to MSCONFIG and just disabling everything in Startup tab. I can tell that a lot of it is crap (like iTunesHelpter) but some of it, like Norton AV and sistray, look like stuff I need. Should I take her advice and just disable all of it, or maybe selectively disable what I think is the crap? Could that have anything to do with it?
 
wherzwaldo -

None of those ideas made any difference.

Is there any way to tell for sure that I haven't become an unwitting server in some porn distribution network?
 
Well, you could disconnect your Internet.

I'm out of ideas, so if anyone else has any suggestions, have at it.
 
waldo -

If I came across as snippy before I certainly didn't mean to. I do appreciate your suggestions.

It's still under warranty so I might take it back in and have Laboratory look at it just to be sure. I've gone through one system crash where I didn't lose data and that was a nightmare - I'd hate to have to go through a hard drive failure.
 
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