Constant hard disk activity with XP Pro...

Just recieved my brand new Dell Inspiron 9400 with XP Pro.

My previous OS was win98 and so I am new to XP.

My hard disk is constantly engaged even when the laptop has been left idle for over an hour.

That is my hard disk is continually being accessed even after my Mcaffee security suite has been turned off and the laptop has been left idle.

Is this normal with XP?

I have 2GB of Ram and an intel core 2 duo processor.

Can any one please help!

 

Some background process is most likely the culprit for that. Either McAcfee or another program is doing it. What programs have you installed that run in the background?

You can follow our Windows XP Tune-up guide here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=5787

 

You could try using Process Explorer to find the culprit;
when its open right-click on a column header, > select columns > process performance tab > check I/O Delta total bytes (the option all the way at the bottom right).

That should give you a good idea of which process is reading/writing the HDD; the processes with a larger number in that column are using the hard-drive.

 

Chaz, I haven't installed anything yet. It's brand new and just out of the box.

What I don't undersatnd guys is WHY when I have 2GB of RAM, is there so much activity on the hard disk instead?

I purchased such a large amount of RAM in the hope my machine would not become slowed down by such a phenomena.

Is it possible that it may be a hardware problem?

Is it possible this may be a problem with the installation of XP?

Hell all of this might even be quite normal for XP Pro? Is it? I had been using win98 until now.

Thanks guys!

regards
IQ.

 

its probably not a hardware problem its probably bloatware, or some other program running it the background that dell puts on there. Solution would be to reformat and see how it works from there, or you could try removing the bloatware from the "add&remove programs" tool in the Control panel.

 

Oh my god, the damn word filter broke the url I posted...
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Proces***plorer.mspx
How ridiculous.


Just go here http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Processesandthreadsutilities.mspx and click Process Explorer; download (link near bottom of page), run it, and follow the steps in my above post.