Win ME and Hard Disk over-activity

No, from start-->run type msconfig, go to the startup tab, and uncheck all but systray and explorer, reboot and see if the thrashing stops. A certain amount at startup is normal as the machine creates a system restore point, but that shouldn't be happening all the time
If after doing msconfig, the drive doesn't thrash, then go back and recheck the programs one at a time, until it starts again, then you have the culprit

Do a (Ctrl,Alt,Delete) and copy everything listed there and post it here.
Do this before you use MSCONFIG to remove some startup programs.
Then do as Steve suggested with the MSCONFIG to see if it stops. I would bet it does stop.

If you post the list of programs running at boot then we can let you know which ones you can leave out.

Here are the processes:

Explorer
Dadtray
Navapw32
Realplay
Hotsync
Ixapplet
Dockapp
Imgicon
Dadapp
Syntpenh
Atitaxx
Syntplpr
Systray
MDM

My guess is that it's the Nav Autoprotect.

Nav loves to thrash hard drives.  Kill NAVAPW32 like RAYT333 suggested, but I'd recommend only killing NAV.  That way you can eliminate one at a time.  If stopping nav solves your problem, then I would reboot and launch NAV from the ICON tray.  There should be some settings that you can "turn down".  For instance, you can change the events that causes Norton to scan a file, and change the "bloodhound" heuristics down to "minimal".

- C

Steve
See: https://www.experts-exchange.com/jsp/qManageQuestion.jsp?ta=win98&qid=20140300