Computer HD light stays on

First thing I would do is run a chkdsk for bad sectors.  It sounds like it may be having an issue reading.  Next consider that the MBR is corrupt or infected.

Well, did you try running an AV, our spyware program?
Can you view into the eventviewer for some errors?

You should also look at the task manager and see how much free RAM your computer has.  The issue is usually caused from a drive that is having a problem reading sectors, the computer is having to excessively use the hard drive for memory swap space, or a virus is consuming the computer resources.

Take a look at the swap file settings by clicking into control panel, settings, advanced system settings, performance settings (on the advanced tab), advanced, and finally "Change" under virtual memory. Make sure the check box is selected to automatically manage paging file size for all drives.

If that is already set up this way, perhaps the swap file is fragmented. In that case, uncheck the box and choose "no paging file" and click "set" and then ok all the way back out, restart the computer, immediately run a defrag on the system and then go back in and check the automatically manage paging file size for all drives check box again. You will have to restart again after.

Alternately add some RAM, which often helps.

Check in Task Manager and see if anything is swamping the system. Look for something that is using high CPU

Was it always so or did this started after some update or software installation?

Anything involving going into Windows is out of the question because it takes a reeeeaally long time to get there. Once your in it takes forever to do anything. I know that processing is fine and down low, it is the HD activity that is killing me! I was able to boot the system with BartPE... Trying to see if I can backup improtant files before I do anything else. It would seem accessing the drive in BARTPE is rather sluggish as well using the A43 file managment utility. Does this help anyone reach any conclusions? I am thinking maybe a hard drive issue and not an infection.

Yes it does sound like a hard drive problem.

Using the ASTRA for DOS wont use your hard drive to boot and you'll see the drive health status straight away without having to run any diagnostics that can take a long time.

I'd continue with the backup then check the drive with ASTRA.  It could also be failing motherboard controllers, so it's best to make sure that it's 100% your hdd that's the problem before going out and replacing it.

>>  Anything involving going into Windows is out of the question   <<   then i suggest you try the UBCD, as suggested above
and i suggested your drive was getting bad...
if you want, you can use my article for how to handle bad drives :
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Hard_Drives/A_3000-The-bad-hard-disk-problem.html

To check if the drive is bad or not you need to scan it with its vendor made tools.
If you have a USB enclosure then take the drive out and install it into USB box. Connect to another machine and try to copy out your data. After that scan the drive.

Have you tried booting into safe mode with command prompt and running chkdsk?

With all this advice, my own included, I hope you first did a full backup of your data, just in case. One of the problems of most hard drive analysis is that it puts additional stress on the hard drives, occasionally being the point of failure during testing.

Ok, the drive is 500GB with only 70GB used and it took 2 days for drive image XML to image the drive. I also copied the profile data only which took an addtional 8 hours within BartPE. So I ran ASTRA and went to Information --> Storage --> and only the DVD drive was listed there. I do think it recognizes the drive, it jus is not showing. I also seen the light come on for the drive and the computer was more responsive in this tool than BartPE, Windows Recovery, and Windows.

I did run chkdsk before ad it completed rather quickly which was weird and I saw no problems. So I am still not 100% sure it is the drive. Is there a bootable tool I can use to detect a boot sector infection? That way I can rule that out...

Kaspersky allows making boot cd for offline scan. Do you have another hdd to connect it instead thisone and check the speeds?

Go to the drive manufacturers website. They typically have a tool that you can use to check the drive.

Can you put the drive in on a another pc as a slave or in a usb enclosure and try access the data on it?

If it's still slow it's the drive - if you can access and read data quickly it's your motherboard.

If you can put it on another computer and access with no problems run Crystal DiskInfo and it will tell you the health even if it's in a usb enclosure which ASTRA32 wont do.

>>  I did run chkdsk before ad it completed rather quickly which was weird   <<  it should at least t ake 1/2 hr - if not it means the OS or file system are corrupt

i still suggest tu run the diag, as i mentioned before

I ran UBCD and used the DL DIAG 5.19 on the 500GB WD hard drive extended test. After 2 hours the scan completed with errors (0223) but said they were repaired. The drive does not seem as taxed now but trying to boot to Windows results in a BSOD. Startup repair says it cannot fix the issue. Chkdsk does not seem to be working correctly as it finished in about 10-20 seconds when run in Windows recovery. Is there a way to repair Windows like maybe sfc /scannow? If I get it booting again should I replace the drive? Thanks!

You could be running chkdsk on wrong partition in recovery mode such as on 100mb msr partition because the drive letter assignment is wrong there double ckeck this.

Ha! I think you are right about chkdsk.... I think the recovery partition shows up as C: on this system, when the system drive is actually D:. I will verify tomorrow.

>>  trying to boot to Windows results in a BSOD   <<  please post the minidump for more info
find it in windows\minidumps
you can copy the dmp file with the drive hooked on another PC, or when booted from a live Knoppix  cd  ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V6.7.0CD-2011-08-01-EN.iso

This should be the dump file. Also, chkdsk on the correct drive letter did not resolve the BSOD iussue.
103011-24070-01.dmp

it refers to : T_ID:  X64_0x9F_3_usbvideo_IMAGE_usbccgp.sys

BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x9F_3_usbvideo_IMAGE_usbccgp.sys
that is the process known as USB Common Class Generic Parent Driver belongs to software Microsoft USB Generic Parent Driver

do you have an usb video device?  that seems to be the cause of the problem
try updating the driver, or reinstall it

Nope... No USB devices are attached to this system.

can you post an exploded view of the usb section in device manager? that can help

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/88477-bsod.html

Possibly related to a USB device (printer?) with drivers that are not Windows 7 compatible.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff539234(v=vs.85).aspx

I cannot get into windows even in safe mode, it still BSODs.

will you please run a diag on the drive, as was asked several times?
i don't understand why youtry all other things, like chkdsk etc...WITHOUT testing the status of the drive
and do run the LONG test please - a 500 Gb drive can take a couple of hours
what brand is it?

I did run a diag as I stated above:

"I ran UBCD and used the DL DIAG 5.19 on the 500GB WD hard drive extended test. After 2 hours the scan completed with errors (0223) but said they were repaired. The drive does not seem as taxed now but trying to boot to Windows results in a BSOD."

I have the new in and just loaded the image of the old drive on it. I hope that if it is a viruis that it does not mess up this drive.

If the scan fixed bad sectors on the drive then you could loose some sector where part of this faulty driver was written. That coud be the reason you get BSODs .

sorry, imust have missed that post.
i would rerun the diag - to make sure no more errors are found
also - you may have bad hardware; boot from the live Knoppix cd and see if it runs well

***note "I hope that if it is a viruis that it does not mess up this drive. "  if it was on the old drive, the image puts it on the new as well; so that won't help here

Thanks for all the help. After determining a HDrive issue with UBCD, I ordered a new drive. I reloded the OS with the system restore disks and reloaded the users data from the old drive. Everything is work great now.

tx for feedback