New PC - HD always doing something?

[dknguyen]

ON my new PC, my harddrive is constantly doing something. It's quiet, and very casual (not like going crazy). But imagine the lowest level of harddrive activity always going on. I normally disabled a bunch of background applications but it's not helping. I'm running WinXP on an Intel Core 2 Duo.

 

[picasm]

If you have bought the computer from one of the well known manufacturers such as Dell, they usually pre-install loads of software including various trial versions that you don't need and can waste the resources of your nice new PC.

If that is the case, you may need to find and uninstall stuff that is not useful to you.
(There are probably some guides to this on the web somewhere).

A common cause of constant drive activity is the Microsoft drive indexing service.
It is supposed to speed-up file searches by indexing all the files into a database.
You can turn it off by clicking on "My computer" then right click on your C drive and then click on "properties" and untick "Allow indexing service to index this drive for fast searching".
Repeat this for any other drives in your PC.

 

[j.p.bill]

If your computer is attached to the internet (duh), than you may have picked up a load of spyware agents. It's even possible someone has placed code into your computer that allows him to use your computer remotely for serious hacking purposes.

I would immediately get AVG Free antivirus, as I don't think the preinstalled Norton does more than slow down the computer. Also, Spybot and AdAware are other freewares that will go through your computer (once installed) and look for spyware.

Get these, do the scans, and remove anything they find. If your drive is still busy, get What's Running (freeware), which will report on all the apps running in the box.

The bad news is that there are now rootkits (so called) that install themselves and run the normal processes at a virtual level, so the rootkit is invisible. If the HD stays busy and Dell says it shouldn't be, you may have something like a rootkit. Scans may report stuff in the registry that can't be removed, which is a good sign of a rootkit. If you are familiar with the registry, a manual scan with REGEDIT may let you see something odd. If it's locked and can't be removed, you're in trouble.

The cure is to back up everything and blow the drive. Don't just resotre it - format it first and use the system restore discks afterwards. You might want to get more advice before you jump into this.

 

[dknguyen]

It's not a Dell. The computer came blank and I installed everything fresh on my own from a Windows XP CD.

I'm pretty sure I turned off the indexing service, maybe I didn't. I did it in My Computer and under regedit- though, that may be one of the previous installs whe I was trying to switch the system partition on my HDs. My memory may have gotten blurred. I'll check ita gain when I get home.

 

[j.p.bill]

You can always get WhatsRunning (freeware) that will list the running processes in the computer. You can try terminating selected ones to see if that is the source of the HD business.

 

[Hero999]

What about auto-updaters? Apart from the Windows update, often other applications have their own auto-updaters that get added to the programs-to-load list when the software is installed.

 

[dknguyen]

What about auto-updaters? Apart from the Windows update, often other applications have their own auto-updaters that get added to the programs-to-load list when the software is installed.

Hmmm. I dont think there are any other autoupdaters other than WIndows. BUt I could be wrong.

 

[audioguru]

If your anti-virus and anti-spyware softwares don't auto-update then your pc is in trouble.

 

[dknguyen]

Yeah, but on my last PC it didn';t make the HD work all the time.

It even does it in safe mode. I'm starting to wonder if it's the LED being shared by the HD and the motherboard (the motherboard just always blinks the LED steadily for whatever reason).

 

[Hero999]

Hmmm. I dont think there are any other autoupdaters other than WIndows. BUt I could be wrong.

I know Java has an auto-updater, and it wouldn't surprise me if the same goes for other programs.

 

[theinfamousbob]

I'm starting to wonder if it's the LED being shared by the HD and the motherboard (the motherboard just always blinks the LED steadily for whatever reason).

Double check your connections for your power and HD LEDs. They might be switched, with your power going to the Green/whatever pins and the HD going to the power pins.

Maybe?

 

[dknguyen]

Doesn't seem to be the case.