Twin Hard Drives, one spinning all the time?

[markjonesx]

I'm running twin hard drives, however one seems to have started writing all the time i.e the lights flashing and I can hear a scratching from the case.

1. Is this normal, sure my computer never used to do this?!
2. Can I fix it? what's the problem.

Please see my rig for my exact set up.

Thanks for your help.

 

[mechBgon]

Perhaps your system has a virus or trojan? Have you done a comprehensive virus scan using the latest virus definitions and with the heuristics enabled?

You might look in Task Manager and see if you see anything that gives you a hint, too.

 

[markjonesx]

I did think of this and I had the Welchia virus, but cleaned it out with Norton Virus 2003.

I rechecked and can find nothing else, is there some othe way I can check?

Another problem?

 

[OverVolt]

Indexing?
Lite-On CD ROM drivers?

my 1st thoughts

But i'm not sure what you mean by twin harddrives, are they in RAID 0? or you have a 80GB as master/40Gb as slave or something?

 

[markjonesx]

Whats Indexing?
Lite in CD-Rom drivers? what's this mean?

80Gb Master and 40Gb Slave.

Heeeelllppppppppp

 

[BoberFett]

I've been having the same thing lately. Starting to drive me batty. I've run full AdAware and virus scans and they've come back with nothing. Is there a way to track what process is accessing certain resources such as disks?

 

[markjonesx]

The little buggers driving me batty at the moment, just sits there scratching away, let me know if you get anywhere!

 

[Johnny101]

You can check out the running processes and what %age CPU usage they're using in winXP by CTRL-ALT-DEL in the processes tab.

 

[StraightPipe]

go to WD.com and download their disk utility, make the boot disk, run the app.

hope this helps.

 

[440BX]

do a clean install of windows.Use a seach engine for instructions.It should be done once a year and fixes everything.It even negates the need for a virus checker.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: 440BX
do a clean install of windows.Use a seach engine for instructions.It should be done once a year and fixes everything.It even negates the need for a virus checker.

That's funny. Reinstalling Windows means you don't need a virus scanner? Nobody listen to this guy.

 

[ssanches]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I've been having the same thing lately. Starting to drive me batty. I've run full AdAware and virus scans and they've come back with nothing. Is there a way to track what process is accessing certain resources such as disks?

Pretty hard to tell what could be causing the large disk activity. Probably one method would be to open the Task Manager and see what process is causing CPU load and hunkinng unwarranted megs of RAM. If you've checked your PC for viruses/trojans and spyware, then do ensure that the indexing service is disabled. Also those folks using WinXP could observe occasional HDD activity every few days. It's caused by the WinXP prefetcher optimizing the disk layout every 3 days or so after an idle timeout of approximately 5 to 30 minutes after boot. Linky

 

[StraightPipe]

Originally posted by: 440BX
do a clean install of windows.Use a seach engine for instructions.It should be done once a year and fixes everything.It even negates the need for a virus checker.

yes, I bet reinstalling once a year protects you from viruses really well

what a jackass

but I do agree it's a good idea to reinstall windows periodically.

 

[Mday]

wtf is twin hard drives?

--

stop mocking 440bx please, looking at the number of posts he has, it's rather obvious he's new.

reinstalling your operating system can help eliminated some viruses, however, there are a great number that do not get eliminated.

 

[corkyg]

All my computers have "twin hard drives" (2 identical drives - size and brand) - and all drives spin if they are receiving power unless they are defunct or "asleep" as in hibernate. The IDE activity LED does not show "spinup" but shows head/actuator arm seeking action. When the drive is running normally without activity, it is spinning. If the LED light is on, it is seeking, trying to find data.

 

[BoberFett]

Originally posted by: ssanches

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I've been having the same thing lately. Starting to drive me batty. I've run full AdAware and virus scans and they've come back with nothing. Is there a way to track what process is accessing certain resources such as disks?

Pretty hard to tell what could be causing the large disk activity. Probably one method would be to open the Task Manager and see what process is causing CPU load and hunkinng unwarranted megs of RAM. If you've checked your PC for viruses/trojans and spyware, then do ensure that the indexing service is disabled. Also those folks using WinXP could observe occasional HDD activity every few days. It's caused by the WinXP prefetcher optimizing the disk layout every 3 days or so after an idle timeout of approximately 5 to 30 minutes after boot. Linky

Yeah, I did try watching the processes CPU% in taskman but that didn't help. Nothing ever jumped over 0%. But that damn drive kept ticking. Time to start killing processes until it stops. This is on W2K, by the way.

 

[BoberFett]

Corky

I'm pretty sure that's what the original poster was talking about. Yes, the drives will always spin as long as they have power (and power saving hasn't spun them down) but that it sounds like he can hear them seeking around. That's what I have happening, and I have a GB of RAM so it's driving me nuts trying to figure out why it's doing that. If I'm not doing anything, it shouldn't have any reason to hit the hard drive.

 

[StraightPipe]

Originally posted by: Mday

stop mocking 440bx please, looking at the number of posts he has, it's rather obvious he's new.

reinstalling your operating system can help eliminated some viruses, however, there are a great number that do not get eliminated.

ok, but, I'm leaving it on the sig for a while. thats some good shtt. anyway, some of us like to use virus protection and firewalls to keep the stuff from ever landing on our systems. if you stay off the porn and kazaa sites you can go years without catching anything. (although Norton did find 1 bug this week).

--markjonesx

some are we correct in assuming that you have run virus scanner, Adaware, and a disk utility?
one of these 3 should find something. checking to see CPU usage when you hear the grind might be worthwhile too.

Edit: one more thing, do you know which drive is spinning? or is it both? might have to crack the case if you only have 1 LED

 

[mechBgon]

In Task Manager, if you go to the Processes tab and then click View > Select Columns... then you can add some I/O columns that might help nail down what's causing the HDD traffic.

 

[markjonesx]

As I started this post, just to let you know I fixed the problem.

The VGA lead at the back of my computer was loose! This seems to have caused a short circuit which was spinning my disc up and flashing the light.

Don't ask me how this can happen but its alright now.

Weird or what?

 

[StraightPipe]

--weird