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Constant hard drive activity with vista...driving me nuts

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Thomasj

Member
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
Ever since I went to Vista Home Premium I have noticed that my hard drive is going nuts all the time. It sounds like im constantly defragging or copying a large file.

I have looked through the processes and im not really sure what they all are. I have killed all the ones that I know I dont need and it didnt help. Anybody else have this happen with vista.

I use Bitdefender internet security, Scanned with CWshredder, spybot and adaware so I dont think its a virus or spyware doing it.

It really picks up when the screen saver comes on. It sound exactly like defragging. Just constant not stop activity
 
in the task manager enable the i/o tab and see what is doing all the write/read activities
 
It is indexing all the files on your drive. Give it a week or so and it will stop.

...or kill the indexing service via services.msc (in the run window).
 
It is indexing all the files on your drive. Give it a week or so and it will stop.

...or kill the indexing service via services.msc (in the run window).

yar, most likely it's Indexing. I'd recommend just leaving it as it will eventually be much less active. it's quite handy when searching as they become nearly instant.
 
I went back to XP because of little peeves like this. Specifically relating to your situation, I figured it would stop indexing after a set period of time, but after 6 weeks I realized that I since I constantly create new files and such that it would never end!
 
I am downloading new files pretty much daily (probably several a day) and I don't notice crazy amounts of HD activity. I think there must be something else at work there or something like that. I have 112,400+ file on my system drive and 89,600+ files on my storage drive and have been back on Vista for a few weeks now and never really noticed any major HD activity. At least not something that made me think something bad was going on. :shrug:
 
As already stated its the indexing service... however... a friend mentioned that sp1 seems to eliminate it... have no clue why.
 
Like thideras and the other folks already mentioned, Vista's Search function is indexing all your personal files silently in the background; while SuperFetch is taking data from your HDD(s), storing it in available RAM and making it readily accessible to the processor.
Windows SuperFetch

A new memory management technology in Windows Vista, Windows SuperFetch, helps keep the computer consistently responsive to your programs by making better use of the computer's RAM. Windows SuperFetch prioritizes the programs you're currently using over background tasks and adapts to the way you work by tracking the programs you use most often and preloading these into memory. With SuperFetch, background tasks still run when the computer is idle. However, when the background task is finished, SuperFetch repopulates system memory with the data you were working with before the background task ran. Now, when you return to your desk, your programs will continue to run as efficiently as they did before you left.
Windows Defender is also running with real-time priority to scan all your disks for malware.
Windows Defender Real-time protection

Scanning can remove existing spyware, but to help protect against new or unknown threats, Windows Defender includes monitoring agents for real-time protection. Several security agents monitor critical areas of the computer that spyware might attempt to modify: autostart, system configuration, Internet Explorer add-ons, Internet Explorer configuration, Internet Explorer downloads, services and drivers, application execution, application registration, and Windows add-ons. These critical areas of the computer represent the common entry points for spyware.
In addition the Disk Defragmenter is running as a scheduled job, and also runs silently.
Automatic disk defragmentation

Infrequent disk defragmentation leads to an inefficient layout of files on the hard disk, which can slow PC performance. Windows Vista includes a new disk defragmenter that runs in the background and automatically defragments the hard disk as need arises. The new disk defragmenter no longer needs to complete its work in a single session—it can defragment incrementally, whenever the computer is idle.
And one other thing, Vista is checking your CD/DVD drive(s) for the presence of disks.

Go to Start | Type in Performance --> select 'Reliability and Performance Monitor' at the top | In the RH pane expand the 'Disk' and 'CPU' sections to see what processes are accessing what files.
 
It wasn't the indexing service that was causing mine to do it, it was Defender and Superfetch. Once I eliminated those processes, my hard drive was quiet again, just like XP.
 
Also, AVG real-time scanner can do it as well even when it's not scheduled to scan.
 
I have to same problem. Except for its on my storage drive which happens to be a Seagate 7200.7 which can be loud as s!@# I eventually gave up after trying lots of things .i.e turning off teh above mentioned services, antivirus scanner, defragmenter, etc...still wouldnt help so I eventually just took the drive out. Not sure if my main drive is doing it since its pretty quite seagate 410as version.
 
All the services mentioned (although I haven't had a problem with SuperFetch) plus the Windows Search Service.
My system is very quiet.
 
Thanks for the above info. My HDDs seem to go nuts sometimes for no reason but most of the time they are quiet. It could be some of the things listed above.
 
didn't know about that reliability and performance monitor. i added it to quick launch so i don't forget about it. thank you for posting about that. :)
 
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