HDD keeps spinning up for no reason - XP

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Hello,

Is it that the drive sounds like it's constantly reading / writing data, when the system is idle? (like the common 'buzzing' sound you hear?). The platters in hard drives always spin when connected to a PC that's on. I thought platters always spin at a constant rate :confused:.

If you've got anti-virus software, check to see whether it scans in the background when the system is idle. It may be causing the activity.

Also, check to see if the indexing service is enabled in Windows. It's supposed to speed up the process of searching files on your hard drive, but for most it's not important, and is known to use up a fair bit of CPU cycles. The indexing service is designed to perform intensive hard-disk indexing operations when the computer is idle. This might explain why there's HDD activity when you're not using it.

Read the following guide to disable the indexing service:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windowsxp/tune-18.html

I disable it on all my PC's.

However, other processes running in the background may be causing HDD activity when idle.
 
You should hear my hard drives! I can barely hear the Raptor over the noise of the SCSI drives and raptors aren't quiet (although the newer models do have fluid dynamic bearings)
 
13!? thats obscene. I have 7 and thats plenty and at one point I had 2 80mm deltas in there and just one of those sounds like a vacuum cleaner :D
 
Ta! I've disabled tht and a couple of other non-essential services. I'va also temporarily uninstalled my antivirus. It's a bit scary, but as that computer is a media centre, and does not go onto the internet or have email, I figured it'll probably be safe. I'll try and set up AVG on the other windoze PC to be able to scan that one...maybe.

Blooming widoze! I mostly use a mac, so it's always annoying to have to descend to XP's level of farting about. Mind you, my mac sometimes sounds like a small jet engine!!Not as bad as some of you are describing, but it's loud nonetheless!
 
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