Yes I have run a disk defrag and disk is healthy. Meanwhile how do I run a disk check to know of any background services? Regarding Anti-Virus I use Mcafee and I do not know if it is scanning permanently.
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Hard Disk spinning all the time
My hard disk spins all the time even though the CPU usage is only 8% especially after 5 hours since I switch on the PC. I have uninstalled all Registry Cleaners because I discovered that they slow up the system.
My Internet Explorer ver. 8 takes some time to load.
Thanks
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MY SYSTEM
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OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name SCANPILLAR
System Manufacturer System manufacturer
System Model System Product Name
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6 GenuineIntel ~2137 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 1302, 09/08/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111)"
Time Zone W. Europe Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 4,096.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.90 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 4.84 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
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Answers
OK, one thing you could try is to go to Task Manager, and inside this you should be able to see which "Processes" are running. Many of these are background services, and it is possible that one is accessing your drive constantly.
They should have descriptions next to them, which will indicate what the program is/does.
If there is a Mcafee scan in progress they should appear in the list
Just going out on a limb here, but are you certain it's the HDD that's making the noise? If this is originating from the fact that you're hearing a constant whurring noise etc, it would more likely be a fan that's spinning unnecessarily fast or something. But I'm guessing you've checked closely and know that it is the HDD?
Is it just the noise that's lead you to believe it's constantly active? Or something else?
The HDD light flashes a lot anyway, even when you're not doing anything! I suppose less so these days as HDDs and OSs now have a lot more power saving features as standard, but remember that OSs are hardly ever completely idle - There's always something going on in the background!
I suppose I'm just saying that this isn't NECESSARILY an actual fault somewhere.
The best way to judge would simply be if it's noticeably changed at some point - It used to be dead quiet, now it's rattling away and annoying you, or something like that.
But as you say, if it's OS related (maybe this particular install of Windows is a bit old and tatty around the edges) a reinstall would undoubtedly resolve that...
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by: kingy0489Posted on 2009-11-04 at 02:11:21ID: 25737834
Have you run a disk defragmentation recently? It could be that the file system is written in a fragmented fashion across the disk?
Also, do you have any background services running a disk check or something along those lines? Maybe an Anti-Virus scanning perminantly? These, coupled with the fragmented disk, can cause all sorts of problems.