Vista accesses hard disk even when idle

[Segvoia]

I have Windows Vista installed on my system. Recently I have noted that my hard disk drive is being accessed even when it is idle.

Why is that happening? How do I stop it? I have seen that my hard disk light keeps on blinking even when my computer is idle.

[Dutta]

Are you running any anti-virus on that computer? Is it configured to run the scan after a certain amount of idle time? Just check it and disable it if that's the case.

[unlimitedtech]

The most likely culprits are anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, instant messenger programs (IM), and Microsoft's own indexing service.

Run Filemon and check which programs are accessing your drive.