Vist Hard Drive Activity

Hi,
I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new machine
withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold and
just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be rattling
away 45 minutes later.
I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
operating virtually all the time like this,
Any ideas?
In hope,
Alan.

I don't notice this, because I leave my desktop on all the time, so it gets
to do the grunt work (indexing, virus scanning, etc.) during the night when
I'm not using it.




"Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
> I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new
> machine withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
> The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold
> and just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be
> rattling away 45 minutes later.
> I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
> Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
> nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
> operating virtually all the time like this,
> Any ideas?
> In hope,
> Alan.

"Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> Is it index system on Vista constantly updating?

Yes.

> There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be operating virtually all
> the time like this,

Yes, there is. See above.

"Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
> I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new
> machine withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
> The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold
> and just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be
> rattling away 45 minutes later.
> I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
> Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
> nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
> operating virtually all the time like this,
> Any ideas?
> In hope,
> Alan.

If it's a new machine it's probably still indexing the files for faster
searching.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Do not send mail.

Chill, it's just doing it's thing. Indexing mostly, but also Superfetch,
startup optimisation and defragging at various times.

It'll get much better after a week or so when everything has settled down.
Meanwhile, the indexing runs at the lowest I/O and CPU priorities, so
shouldn't slow down your work.

Steve

And if it is not a new machine? I have the same experience and I have been
running mine for a month or more. I see constant spikes in CPU usage usually
associated with a display program but when I stop the process it continues to
run and locks up when I play movies. 3Ghz dualcore AMD.
I know Vista is great but do you have any REAL answers that might help a
person not wanting to spend all day in chat rooms to figure out if his HP is
a dog or is Vista the problem. Could it be Defender? I have Norton so I
shut Defender down and it seemed to help with the DVDs locking up. And now
it is not so irritating.
Soorry for going on so but it ahs been a month now and my old Pentium 3 with
Windows ME was better.
--
ACK


"Dave" wrote:

> I don't notice this, because I leave my desktop on all the time, so it gets
> to do the grunt work (indexing, virus scanning, etc.) during the night when
> I'm not using it.
>
>
>
>
> "Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> > Hi,
> > I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new
> > machine withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
> > The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold
> > and just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be
> > rattling away 45 minutes later.
> > I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
> > Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
> > nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
> > operating virtually all the time like this,
> > Any ideas?
> > In hope,
> > Alan.
>
>

Thanks to all of you for the replies.
It's not a new machine, I've had it since March.
I don't want to leave the machine running twenty-four hours a day.
Why does it take up to three hours for the HD to stop running furiously
every time I start it up?
Surely the indexing system doesn't start from scratch every time you switch
it on, or does it?
I can be sitting in the next room watching the TV and suddenly I hear the HD
roaring away like it was doing a virus scan. This is with nothing at all
open or running, just the desktop showing.
Something must be running in the background.
I've been give a complete blank from the shop I bought it from.
Can anyone give me any advice as to what this could be?
I can supply screenshots of the performance monitor etc if necessary,
Still in hope, Alan.

"Steve Thackery" <thack@nowhere.net> wrote in message
news:uLWN1S66HHA.5984@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Chill, it's just doing it's thing. Indexing mostly, but also Superfetch,
> startup optimisation and defragging at various times.
>
> It'll get much better after a week or so when everything has settled down.
> Meanwhile, the indexing runs at the lowest I/O and CPU priorities, so
> shouldn't slow down your work.
>
> Steve
>

Try to look at your "defragmented by Vista" drive with, let's say, Windows
2000's Defragmenter. You'll understand that the red lines that dominate the
image represent your defragmented files. And why we aren't shown any
imagistic progress of what's being done to our files while defragmenting,
also.

Seriously foks my machine has been running now for almost an hour. By the
way why all the updates. I seem to get one or two a day?
--
ACK


"ACK" wrote:

> And if it is not a new machine? I have the same experience and I have been
> running mine for a month or more. I see constant spikes in CPU usage usually
> associated with a display program but when I stop the process it continues to
> run and locks up when I play movies. 3Ghz dualcore AMD.
> I know Vista is great but do you have any REAL answers that might help a
> person not wanting to spend all day in chat rooms to figure out if his HP is
> a dog or is Vista the problem. Could it be Defender? I have Norton so I
> shut Defender down and it seemed to help with the DVDs locking up. And now
> it is not so irritating.
> Soorry for going on so but it ahs been a month now and my old Pentium 3 with
> Windows ME was better.
> --
> ACK
>
>
> "Dave" wrote:
>
> > I don't notice this, because I leave my desktop on all the time, so it gets
> > to do the grunt work (indexing, virus scanning, etc.) during the night when
> > I'm not using it.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > "Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
> > news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> > > Hi,
> > > I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new
> > > machine withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
> > > The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold
> > > and just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be
> > > rattling away 45 minutes later.
> > > I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
> > > Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
> > > nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
> > > operating virtually all the time like this,
> > > Any ideas?
> > > In hope,
> > > Alan.
> >
> >

"ACK" <ACK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F8561BEA-7B98-4D8A-91D1-26BD3E934694@microsoft.com...
> Seriously foks my machine has been running now for almost an hour. By the
> way why all the updates. I seem to get one or two a day?


Windows Defender updates quite often.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
Do not send mail.

I turn Windows Defender off so seriously how do I get this thing to stop
running all the time. I can't help but think it is going to wear out.
--
ACK


"Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM" wrote:

> "ACK" <ACK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:F8561BEA-7B98-4D8A-91D1-26BD3E934694@microsoft.com...
> > Seriously foks my machine has been running now for almost an hour. By the
> > way why all the updates. I seem to get one or two a day?
>
>
> Windows Defender updates quite often.
>
> --
> Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM
> Do not send mail.
>

Yes, but the problem is that if you use Vista in a Notebook, and you
do a lot of presentations to customers in different locations daily,
with a lot of hibernate-resume processes (or shutdown-restart ones),
you cannot wait ten to twenty minutes after each resume or restart
process until Vista finish to do tasks that they are disturbing to you
in these situations. You have little control on that, starting about
how to know what hell is Vista doing with that lot of background
activity.

Definitively, Vista is a lot less productive for a road runner
Notebook user than XP.

"Dave" <dave@beepbeep.com> wrote:

>I don't notice this, because I leave my desktop on all the time, so it gets
>to do the grunt work (indexing, virus scanning, etc.) during the night when
>I'm not using it.
>
>
>
>
>"Alan" <alan111@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
>news:eQbuIo26HHA.4736@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> Hi,
>> I've used all versions of Windows for many years. Since buying a new
>> machine withe Vista installed I have one complaint with it.
>> The hard drive seems to never stop. I can turn on the machine from cold
>> and just do literally nothing at all and the hard drive will still be
>> rattling away 45 minutes later.
>> I've been on to Hewlet Packard and got no joy from them.
>> Is it index system on Vista constantly updating? It's really getting on my
>> nerves listening to it. There can't be any reason why the HD needs to be
>> operating virtually all the time like this,
>> Any ideas?
>> In hope,
>> Alan.
Thanks
Juan I. Cahis
Santiago de Chile (South America)
Note: Please forgive me for my bad English, I am trying to improve it!

[Steph]

Try turning all that stuff off. Go to the Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Services and turn off Superfetch,Windows Indexing, and Windows Update. I got my hard drive down to a quick blink every 2 sec rather then a long blink for half a sec every sec.

Thanks a lot Steph. I understand the Windows Indexing and Windows
Update features, but what will I loose if I disable Superfetch? Can
Superfetch and Windows Indexing be allowed to run in a certain hour
interval only, for example during night?

Steph <Steph.2wlffj@DoNotSpam.com> wrote:

>
>Try turning all that stuff off. Go to the Control Panel\Administrative
>Tools\Services and turn off Superfetch,Windows Indexing, and Windows
>Update. I got my hard drive down to a quick blink every 2 sec rather
>then a long blink for half a sec every sec.
Thanks
Juan I. Cahis
Santiago de Chile (South America)
Note: Please forgive me for my bad English, I am trying to improve it!

Steph wrote:
> Try turning all that stuff off. Go to the Control Panel\Administrative
> Tools\Services and turn off Superfetch,Windows Indexing, and Windows
> Update. I got my hard drive down to a quick blink every 2 sec rather
> then a long blink for half a sec every sec.
>
>

Not read the thread but also my computer, right click on a drive and go
to properties. Uncheck "Index this drive" etc. This apparently is not
the same as turning windows indexing off.