Results 1 to 11 of 11

Thread: Resons why m HDD's red light suddenly stars flickering

  1. #1
    Triple Platinum Member wumply's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Belmont, NH
    Posts
    720

    Resons why m HDD's red light suddenly stars flickering

    It doesn't just flicker--it flickers furiously.

    I realize this can easily be because some update from my A-V or my spyware is being downloaded/installed, but those 2 programs indicate this on my monitor. Ditto with MS updates.

    But often there is no monitor indication, period! Just the HDD light all by itself. This could well be due to some process, right?

    What are some of the processes and what triggers them--I mean such HDD activity doesn't appear to occur on any regular basis.

    Are there other sources of this sudden flickering?
    I've created my own website...a collection of moving, sad and happy and humorous poems which I would like to share with others. They come from stories my dad used to tell me when I was a kid. If you could glance at my site and if you know of others who might enjoy it and perhaps tell them of it, I would be most appreciative. Thank you. The address is www.metrocast.net/~wumply/exper-1.html

  2. #2
    Techzonez Governor Super Moderator Conan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Philippines
    Posts
    3,920
    It's probably the indexing service.

  3. #3
    Triple Platinum Member wumply's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Belmont, NH
    Posts
    720
    Conan...so what does that indexing service DO?

  4. #4
    Techzonez Governor Super Moderator Conan's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Philippines
    Posts
    3,920
    Taken from:

    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html

    3. Disable Indexing Service
    The Indexing Service in Windows XP indexes your files presumably to shorten the time needed to search your hard drive if you are looking for a specific file or part of a phrase inside a file. However, the constant indexing of files actually slows down system performance and does not benefit search performance except for extreme complex searches.

    Instructions - To disable the Indexing Service go into "My Computer", right-click on all your hard drive partitions one at a time, left-click "Properties". Uncheck "Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching". Select "Apply changes to subfolders and files". If any files cannot be updated select "Ignore All".



  5. #5
    Triple Platinum Member Curio's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    London
    Posts
    686
    Download a program that will tell you what is accessing the disk like filemon from sysinternals or Disk Action from PCMag utilities, it will remove all doubt as to what is accessing the disk. Many softs annoyingly start scanning the disk for malware or indexing it's content when you would rather they didn't.
    I'm using Windows 7 - you got a problem with that?

  6. #6
    Triple Platinum Member wumply's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    Belmont, NH
    Posts
    720
    Conan...thanks. That site "My Webpages" was cool! I bookmarked it and plan to read 90% of it. I disabled the indexing service.

    Curio: my thanks to you too for your input. I looked at Disk Action but apparently it is only for 98 and ME. I didn't see one for XP. I'd be interested in your impressions of Vista if you've had it long enough to form opinions..

  7. #7
    Triple Platinum Member Curio's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    London
    Posts
    686
    Disk Action for 2000/xp - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1944800,00.asp

    Vista is cool especially if you have a widescreen monitor, there are lots of things in it which will make it a good seller for business and home users. It's a shame about the boot loader though - editing boot.ini was so simple
    I'm using Windows 7 - you got a problem with that?

  8. #8
    Precision Processor Super Moderator egghead's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    In Your Monitor
    Posts
    3,212
    Quote Originally Posted by Curio View Post
    Download a program that will tell you what is accessing the disk like filemon from sysinternals or Disk Action from PCMag utilities, it will remove all doubt as to what is accessing the disk. Many softs annoyingly start scanning the disk for malware or indexing it's content when you would rather they didn't.
    FILEMON
    http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html

    cannot locate a trial for disk action and it sounds pretty darn good

    Egghead
    ------------------------------------------------------------



  9. #9
    Triple Platinum Member Curio's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    London
    Posts
    686
    PC Mag Utilities costs $19.99 for a year subscription and you can download all of them for the year - that's the whole current library plus one new one a month as they are released over the next 12 months. Some are good some are not but for £12-ish you can't really moan about it as there are many which justify it on their own.
    I'm using Windows 7 - you got a problem with that?

  10. #10
    Precision Processor Super Moderator egghead's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2002
    Location
    In Your Monitor
    Posts
    3,212
    Microsoft bought filemon

    get it here
    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...s/filemon.mspx

    regmon,
    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...es/regmon.mspx

    And now Microsofts new offering Proccess monitor,
    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...ssmonitor.mspx

    Must have ultillities...

    Dam my active desktop calendar really uses my hard drive more than anything... strange
    Last edited by egghead; November 18th, 2006 at 17:20 PM.
    ------------------------------------------------------------



  11. #11
    Bronze Member Coffee's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2003
    Posts
    175
    Thanks for the replies you guys. WinSysinternals create great apps and have used these before However what they dont do is show port access on filemon or files or files on tcpview. Would be nice if someone came up with an easy to understand and simple interface for something similar and works just as effective though

    Thanks.
    Live long and prosper!

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •