Hard Drive Problem

[Traidur]

Hello all, this is my first post and the problem I got has been bugging me. First my Specs:

SOYO Dragon KT/333
Athlon 2000 XP
512 RAM
Windows XP
Hard Drive 0 - MAXTOR 6L040J2 40GB
Hard Drive 1 - Western Digital WD400EB 40GB

Ok, the problem is with the Western Digital drive. It acts normal for a while then all of a sudden whenever you try to access files, the computer takes a serious CPU hit and everything else slows down until the file is open. It acts like this for weeks and then it returns to normal. It's done this twice to me now. The last time it was in this state I tried some trouble shooting. I switched IDE cables and switched positions of the drives and it still was slow. I put the Western Digital in someone else's computer and it worked fine. I put a different drive in my slave spot and it worked fine. I put the Western Digital back in my computer and it was slow again. I was confused. All of a sudden it works fine now and I was just wondering if anybody has any idea what is going on.

Thanks

 

[redbeard1]

Is it possible windows update installed this patch for you and slowed things up? There are many more articles describing this issue if you do a google search.

Q811493 hotfix

 

[Traidur]

I don't think that's the problem since I have not installed that patch and the problems have been happening far longer than the patch has even existed.

 

[Epimetreus]

This only happens when you are accessing files on the WD HDD? I find that hard to believe. Not doubting your integrity, but this sounds a LOT like the indexing service and/or backup service doing their jobs. Both can result in periodic intervals of HEAVY disk I/O and CPU activity which will basically make your system run like molasses for a few moments. I personally found both services to be a pain in the ass and disabled them. You can disable indexing by going into services.msc and disable auto backup through system properties.

 

[Nirvana1979]

I had a particular file named vietcong.exe, and whenever I opened I browsed a folder that contained this file, my hard drive would run for 4 minutes. I ran several virus scan programs on it but it didn't return any results. So I was finally able to delete it and I haven't had that problem since.

If your hard drive is running out of control, it could also be a fragmentation problem, or it could be near full capacity.

 

[Traidur]

Thanks for the feedback so far. What you're describing makes it happen for only a few moments? This happens for days or even weeks. It does just happen to one of the hard drives even though it's hard to believe.

 

[RudeBoie]

It could be indexing, but it's probably not the hard drive itself.

I had this problem, but I'm having trouble remembering exactly what it was.

If you can replicate the problem, go to task manager/processes and then do it. Make sure CPU usage is the filter so you can see what's happening. If I remember correctly, it wasn't Explorer but another Windows-native program that was using up all the CPU. I eventually disabled it from being able to run and everything was fine.