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Does Vista constantly scanning the hard drive.

N

Nickyct

Senior member
I'm running Vista Premium 64 bit.
I notice that sometime my hard drive LED is constantly on and it look like the hard drive is spinning as well. At first I thought it was my Avast software is doing the scanning routine but it didn't look like it was doing anything.
It's so annoying when it does that because it slow my system down when I'm trying to work.
 
Vista is most likely indexing items on your hard drive. You can turn these off if you look around for the option.

I'm trying to find the link giving all thsi information now.
 
Originally posted by: Nickyct
I'm running Vista Premium 64 bit.
I notice that sometime my hard drive LED is constantly on and it look like the hard drive is spinning as well. At first I thought it was my Avast software is doing the scanning routine but it didn't look like it was doing anything.
It's so annoying when it does that because it slow my system down when I'm trying to work.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's slowing things down or are you just trained to think that hdd activity = bogged down. I've been playing 3d game in the middle of a backup or index and didn't even notice till I spotted the hdd light and went to investigate.

Find out what's happening first though. Don't guess. Goto resource monitor (on performance tab of task manager). Expand the Disk section.

You can sort by Reads/Writes to get an idea of what's churning. Background Priority I/O shouldn't be causing you issues. Normal priority may.
 
Originally posted by: Smilin
Originally posted by: Nickyct
I'm running Vista Premium 64 bit.
I notice that sometime my hard drive LED is constantly on and it look like the hard drive is spinning as well. At first I thought it was my Avast software is doing the scanning routine but it didn't look like it was doing anything.
It's so annoying when it does that because it slow my system down when I'm trying to work.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's slowing things down or are you just trained to think that hdd activity = bogged down. I've been playing 3d game in the middle of a backup or index and didn't even notice till I spotted the hdd light and went to investigate.

Find out what's happening first though. Don't guess. Goto resource monitor (on performance tab of task manager). Expand the Disk section.

You can sort by Reads/Writes to get an idea of what's churning. Background Priority I/O shouldn't be causing you issues. Normal priority may.
Click to expand...

I notice that Nero took ten times longer than normal when it burns a movie.
Normally it takes less than a minute for nero to re encode the movie (thanks to the X2 processor) but this time it took forever. I canceled nero and got out and the LED still on. I waited till the LED went out and started again and this time it went faster, alot faster. So, I know it was the hard drive.

 
Originally posted by: Nickyct
Originally posted by: Smilin
Originally posted by: Nickyct
I'm running Vista Premium 64 bit.
I notice that sometime my hard drive LED is constantly on and it look like the hard drive is spinning as well. At first I thought it was my Avast software is doing the scanning routine but it didn't look like it was doing anything.
It's so annoying when it does that because it slow my system down when I'm trying to work.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's slowing things down or are you just trained to think that hdd activity = bogged down. I've been playing 3d game in the middle of a backup or index and didn't even notice till I spotted the hdd light and went to investigate.

Find out what's happening first though. Don't guess. Goto resource monitor (on performance tab of task manager). Expand the Disk section.

You can sort by Reads/Writes to get an idea of what's churning. Background Priority I/O shouldn't be causing you issues. Normal priority may.
Click to expand...

I notice that Nero took ten times longer than normal when it burns a movie.
Normally it takes less than a minute for nero to re encode the movie (thanks to the X2 processor) but this time it took forever. I canceled nero and got out and the LED still on. I waited till the LED went out and started again and this time it went faster, alot faster. So, I know it was the hard drive.
Click to expand...

Ok, next step is to find out what's using the drive. Use aformentioned technique.

 
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
 
Yes, it's supposed to do that. Shouldn't slow anything down though. It will stop indexing if you need to access the hard drive.
 
Originally posted by: stash
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
Click to expand...

The Vista defrag is slow and doesn't have any options.
 
Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
Originally posted by: stash
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
Click to expand...

The Vista defrag is slow and doesn't have any options.
Click to expand...

What required options are lacking? C'mon - this is silly. What's missing, really?
 
Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
Originally posted by: stash
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
Click to expand...

The Vista defrag is slow and doesn't have any options.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I'm sure Stash is a MS paid shill.
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
Originally posted by: stash
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
Click to expand...

The Vista defrag is slow and doesn't have any options.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I'm sure Stash is a MS paid shill.
Click to expand...

stash is an extremely knowledgeable presence in many online communities and provides lots of expertise and help. I think that criticizing him because of your personal vendetta against Vista is unfair.

While the Vista defragger is not always faster than XP you really don't need the fancy bars and I have only used it once manually because it is automatic. You're not supposed to have to spend all sorts of time with graphics and assorted programs to take care of your hard disk's "health".
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
Originally posted by: stash
Why would you install a third party defragger? Defragging is exactly the type of maintenance type operation the OS should be responsibile for. Users should not have to worry about defragging their drives.

Reading the reviews of the product, the only benefits I can grok are that it has a UI showing pretty colors moving around (useless and inaccurate) and that it's faster than XP's defragger. Vista defragger runs as a scheduled task on a regular basis and the user never notices. As it should be.
Click to expand...

The Vista defrag is slow and doesn't have any options.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I'm sure Stash is a MS paid shill.
Click to expand...

troll....


what "options" would you really NEED in a defrag?
 
Originally posted by: InlineFive
While the Vista defragger is not always faster than XP you really don't need the fancy bars and I have only used it once manually because it is automatic.

You're not supposed to have to spend all sorts of time with graphics and assorted programs to take care of your hard disk's "health".
Click to expand...

That should be the decision and choice of the end user.

Since when is it "your" business to decide what I am supposed to have or not supposed to have in regards to "my" computer?
 
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
Originally posted by: InlineFive
While the Vista defragger is not always faster than XP you really don't need the fancy bars and I have only used it once manually because it is automatic.

You're not supposed to have to spend all sorts of time with graphics and assorted programs to take care of your hard disk's "health".
Click to expand...

That should be the decision and choice of the end user.

Since when is it "your" business to decide what I am supposed to have or not supposed to have in regards to "my" computer?
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't you already agree to let Microsoft take over your computer by accepting the EULA and installing Vista?
 
I wish I got paid to post in online forums.

I post here and elsewhere on my own time, and because I enjoy doing it. I'm not a sales guy, I'm not a marketing guy, and I'm not an evangelist. I'm an engineer who likes to solve problems, and for me, helping someone solve a problem is worth dealing with the trolls, immaturity and FUD that pollute pretty much every forum.

Yes I have opinions, just like everyone else. But they are mine, not my employer's. And I'm not going to be shy about expressing them just because some people can't make the distinction.

/rant

Just to add a little bit of relevant content to this post, if you want options with defrag, look at the command line version. But again, having options, a UI, a progress indicator, whatever, is all completely unnecessary for 99% of users.

At the risk of again shilling for Microsoft :roll: read some links from the defrag team on why they made the design decisions they did.
http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archiv...-why-windows-vista-defrag-is-cool.aspx
https://blogs.technet.com/filecab/articles/440717.aspx
 
That should be the decision and choice of the end user.

Since when is it "your" business to decide what I am supposed to have or not supposed to have in regards to "my" computer?
Click to expand...
So go and buy a copy of whatever defragging tool has the most shiny objects and blinking lights to suit your fancy. Nobody's stopping you if you want to watch a program defrag your drives all day. Just like nobody will stop you if you want to watch paint dry or grass grow.

The rest of us will use that time for more interesting/productive/fun/useful things.
 
OK, let's bring this discussion back on topic 🙂

I have a similar issue as the OP - installed Vista 32bit Home Premium over XP (upgrade, not clean install), and ever since then it has been constantly churning the HDD. Initially I thought that it was indexing, but after leaving the computer completely idle for 12 hours it is still churning like mad.

Looking at procmon, the main culprit seems to be excessive activity by svchost.exe. If I reboot in safe mode the problem goes away, but the moment I do a normal startup it starts churning again.

If it is the search indexer doing this, then there is something wrong, because 12 hrs should be plenty of time for it to index everything, the HDD is only 250 Gb.
 
Grab Process Explorer from sysinternals and you'll be able to look 'inside' of svchost and see what service is using cpu/disk/etc. time.

 
Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
1. Turn Search Indexer Off (Avafind is much better)

2. Turn off Shadow Copy/Restore (Acronis True Image 10 is better)

3. Turn off defragmention ( http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/ )
Click to expand...

No.

Originally posted by: Smilin
next step is to find out what's using the drive. Use aformentioned technique.
Click to expand...

What if none of the above are causing the issue? What if performing the above introduces new issues?

You don't just start willy-nilly f*ing with things. That's bad troubleshooting. Find out what is going on, then you can f* with things.
🙂
 
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