Something accesses the hard disk every two sec (longish)
 

Hi,
I was given an old Compaq Deskpro with a 350Mhz PII and 6 G Maxtor hard
drive, from which I removed the vestiges of NT4 and installed Win98.
It worked well enough with 196 M of PC100 RAM
But something regularly accesses the hard disk every two seconds or so,
like a clock or heart beat. And I just dont know what it is. The previous
user says it always did this, so I don't think it s anything acting thru
the Windows OS which is causing it.
I did not think this regular accessing of the disk mattered -- it simply
meant a little clicking noise and a blink of the led. Or so I thought.
Until after setting the puter up for a friend. I got into a bad series of
install/uninstalls of dodgy bloatware. After which I wanted to clean things
up a bit with Scandisk and Defragmenter.
It then transpired that the disk acessing would not allow Scandisk or
Defrag to get under way and complete.
What could be accessing the disk? Could it be coming from the BIOS? (One
of the first things I checked was that the MSWord feature FastFind was
indeed disabled and closed, so I dont think its that.)
I would be grateful for any thoughts on this one.
Michael Anders

Dunno about Deskpros, but on some Presarios of that era, Auto Insert
Notification on the CD-ROM drive(s) could cause the HD LED to flicker once
per second. Check in Device Manager in Windows and see if AIN is enabled.
HH

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I was given an old Compaq Deskpro with a 350Mhz PII and 6 G Maxtor hard
drive, from which I removed the vestiges of NT4 and installed Win98.
It worked well enough with 196 M of PC100 RAM
But something regularly accesses the hard disk every two seconds or so,
like a clock or heart beat. And I just dont know what it is. The previous
user says it always did this, so I don't think it s anything acting thru
the Windows OS which is causing it.
I did not think this regular accessing of the disk mattered -- it
simply
meant a little clicking noise and a blink of the led. Or so I thought.
Until after setting the puter up for a friend. I got into a bad series
of
install/uninstalls of dodgy bloatware. After which I wanted to clean
things
up a bit with Scandisk and Defragmenter.
It then transpired that the disk acessing would not allow Scandisk or
Defrag to get under way and complete.
What could be accessing the disk? Could it be coming from the BIOS?
(One
of the first things I checked was that the MSWord feature FastFind was
indeed disabled and closed, so I dont think its that.)
I would be grateful for any thoughts on this one.
Michael Anders

I'm intrigued HH.
Just what is AIM and how does one control/enable/disable it?
FWIW, I changed the original CD drive for a burner, but the accessing of the
HD has continued as before.
Thanks,
Leachim

"HH" wrote in message
...
Dunno about Deskpros, but on some Presarios of that era, Auto Insert
Notification on the CD-ROM drive(s) could cause the HD LED to flicker once
per second. Check in Device Manager in Windows and see if AIN is enabled.
HH

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I was given an old Compaq Deskpro with a 350Mhz PII and 6 G Maxtor
hard
drive
(snip)
something regularly accesses the hard disk every two seconds or so,
like a clock or heart beat
.....
the disk acessing would not allow Scandisk or
Defrag to get under way and complete...

Do a Google search for diskact.zip which is an old PC Mag utility that
identifies all disk activity. This was freeware but now PC Mag charges for
everything. The search should turn up a free copy.

With AIN (AIM is an accronym for AOL Instant Messenger) enabled, the PC
querries the drive once per second to see if a CD has been inserted. If
memory serves, this enabled the auto-run feature when it first was
introduced. On machines with it, you could enable/disable via Device Manager
by checking/unchecking a box.
It sometimes interferred with scandisk and/or defrag causing these utilities
to start over, and over, and over, ad nauseum. The issue was mainly with
Presarios made in late 1997 and early 1998, specifically, the 4800 and 4500
series machines.
HH

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
I'm intrigued HH.
Just what is AIM and how does one control/enable/disable it?
FWIW, I changed the original CD drive for a burner, but the accessing of
the
HD has continued as before.
Thanks,
Leachim

"HH" wrote in message
...
Dunno about Deskpros, but on some Presarios of that era, Auto Insert
Notification on the CD-ROM drive(s) could cause the HD LED to flicker
once
per second. Check in Device Manager in Windows and see if AIN is
enabled.
HH

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I was given an old Compaq Deskpro with a 350Mhz PII and 6 G Maxtor
hard
drive
(snip)
something regularly accesses the hard disk every two seconds or so,
like a clock or heart beat
....
the disk acessing would not allow Scandisk or
Defrag to get under way and complete...

You can get it free he

http://boyar.hypermart.net/main2.html

HH


"Frank346" wrote in message
...
Do a Google search for diskact.zip which is an old PC Mag utility that
identifies all disk activity. This was freeware but now PC Mag charges for
everything. The search should turn up a free copy.

Thanks all the replies. Reckon I'll lick it now,
Leachim

I've got that problem on my Compaq Presario S4020WM, Windows XP Home,
purchased from Walmart last summer. It was the autoplay feature of the
CD-ROM drive. When I turned that off, the problem stopped. So it appears to
be an ongoing problem with Presario machines, independent of the op system.
Here's the registry hack I discovered to fix it:

to turn autoplay on...
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Cdrom]
"AutoRun"=dword:00000001

to turn autoplay off...
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\Cdrom]
"AutoRun"=dword:00000000

In other words, just change the dword value.
-E

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
Thanks all the replies. Reckon I'll lick it now,
Leachim

"Auto Insert Notification" means that the operating system will
regularly strobe the CD-ROM drive to see if a CD has been inserted. If
so, it will "auto-run" whatever startup program it finds (if there is
one) there. Besides the problem you may be having, I have it disabled
it myself because I prefer to be in control of what software starts
running and when it does so!

Try Start; Settings; Control Panel; System; Device Manager; the "+"
next to "CDROM"; double-click the CDROM drive listed there; select the
"Settings" tab; un-check the "Auto insert notification" box if it's
checked.

"Fast Find" and "auto insert notification" are the usual culprits.
Good luck!


"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message ...
I'm intrigued HH.
Just what is AIM and how does one control/enable/disable it?
FWIW, I changed the original CD drive for a burner, but the accessing of the
HD has continued as before.
Thanks,
Leachim

"HH" wrote in message
...
Dunno about Deskpros, but on some Presarios of that era, Auto Insert
Notification on the CD-ROM drive(s) could cause the HD LED to flicker once
per second. Check in Device Manager in Windows and see if AIN is enabled.
HH

"Leachim Sredna" wrote in message
...
Hi,
I was given an old Compaq Deskpro with a 350Mhz PII and 6 G Maxtor
hard
drive
(snip)
something regularly accesses the hard disk every two seconds or so,
like a clock or heart beat
....
the disk acessing would not allow Scandisk or
Defrag to get under way and complete...