hard drive working overtime

[genes]

Hi all,

First time posting on this site! For the last six months or so, I've been having the same problem of a spinning hard drive. I leave my computer on at all times and it occurs when I've left the computer idle for a period of time. I've run adaware and run with Norton Antivirus and internet security on. I don't know if this matters, but I run through a cable connection and have a Dlink DI-524 wireless router. I've got windows xp pro. Otherwise the hard drive is a little slow, but works fine.

I think that it may be a virus that is sending out information or in some way using my computer during this idle time - particularly at night - but that's really just a hunch - I don't have any real information that would indicate that. I started this thread in the malware section originally, but they suggested that I start with the hardware group first - so I'm reposting it here.

Any suggestions to figure out what is causing the hard drive to keep working when I'm not using it - or how to stop it - other than shutting down?

Thanks

[shwaip]

I had this problem because it had been too long since my last defrag, so windows would run it after I had been idle for 'x' minutes.

[genes]

Thanks Schwaip,

I tried the defrag initially but that didn't stop it...it's been going on for months now.

[muddocktor]

Do you have indexing turned on in your windows install? If so, deactivate indexing. I've noticed that indexing will thrash the hell out of a hard drive. You can do this by right clicking the drive letter in question (C, if it's your primary or only hard drive), then unchecking the box in front of the line that says "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching".

[WeAreNotAlone]

This might be related.... What I'd do is to download the tools mentioned and run them.

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18846

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=429611


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