T61, Hard drive running 24/7 eating up the space

Hi,
I am bugged with the strange problem, something is running and eating up all the hard drive space slowly. I didnot install any external software yet and did not connect to the internet.
It start with every startup and run for 15-20 minutes and then stops. HD LED flashing during that time and HD space reducing.

T61, 7300, 2G Ram, 160 gb HD, Vista ultimate.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions

 

It's called Vista.

 

Try checking to see whether System Restore is turned on or off. If it is on, it will eat up a lot of HDD space.

 

Nice to ear about the system restore.

I had the same issue with my r51 until a put this lenovo tool off.

My new laptop will be at home next week and I will put this off right away.

I'm just disapointed this still an issue. (Well, not really an issue but...)

 

Turn off system restore and delete any backups it may have made.
Make sure ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery isn't making backups without your knowledge and delete any that it has.

 

Thanks a lot for the information. I can see the system restore program which allow me to go back to the most recent update, but I dont see any option to turn it off. Please inform, it may be a simple thing but I just couldnt find it. Any detail would be great.
Thanks

 

Sorry, guys for multiple post, but I found it under the control panel, system and maintenance, system.

Thanks

 

Ok, I went and turned off the system restore and I checked the thinkvantage rescue and recovery, nothing is backing up, but still as I restart, my HD runs like crazy for 15-20 minutes and them calms down. Please suggest if thier is something I am really missing.
Thanks all

 

You can delete previous restore points using Disk Cleaner, which is a Vista tool. If you haven't already done so, that should clear up some space.

Indexing tends to run at startup, at least for me. It doesn't run at every boot up, but when it does, it accesses the hard drive for a while, depending how what it is indexing and how many files you have. You can try turning that off. Under Services, it is set to automatically start when Vista boots, however, you can change that to manual, or disable it completely.

 

You might to check out this thread. Could probably have some answers for you:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=136375

 

The big improvement in Vista is it's caching ability and from what I've read that means you will indeed experience a lot of HDD activity at first as it learns your useage patterns and caches various programs in virtual memory. In theory it should calm down after a while but there will always be some HDD activity when it first starts as it loads programs into memory, the idea being that once in memory programs will start almost instantaneously rather than having to load from the HDD every time. At least that's my understanding.

It's a huge difference from how XP operates and similar to how OSX works. That's why the more memory you have with Vista the better it will perform.

 

Try to let your computer sit for several hours while running defragmentation. During defragmentation, Vista will also index all your files for Windows Search. After defrag is don't, your hard drive should be able to shut up.

 

Check your swap file settings, it may be set to automatic, go in there and limit it.