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Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

T400/T410/T420 and T500/T510/T520 Series
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wwwalker2
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Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#1 Post by wwwalker2 » Sun Dec 28, 2008 2:00 pm

I have a new T400 running Win XP. The hard disk pulses on and off at about 1 second intervals. Forever. Even when booted in Safe Mode. Lenovo's repair was to re-install VISTA. That worked for the disk, but not for me. When I reinstalled XP, the problem resumed.
Passes all diagnostic tests. The only think that turns off the hard disk is disabling or removing the DVDRAM drive. I tried updating the DVD driver and firmware for that but no updates were available. Any suggestions?

ryan1212
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#2 Post by ryan1212 » Mon Dec 29, 2008 3:31 am

Do you have windows desktop search installed and indexing your hard drive? What about virus protection?
T440s 20AR-S0LU00, X220 4287-2WU, X201 3625-F5U, X60 1709-H6U, T400 2767-RB2, T40 2373-75U.

Harryc
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#3 Post by Harryc » Mon Dec 29, 2008 6:44 am


wwwalker2
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#4 Post by wwwalker2 » Mon Dec 29, 2008 11:10 am

File indexing is turned off.

I tried disabling autorun in the registry but that didnt help.

In the install/unistall list, I found an application called 'drag & drop to disk'. I uninstalled that and the disk seems to have quieted down. Not sure what that app does or whether I will miss it. Unfortunately, I also got rid of rescue/recovery at the same time so that might have been the culprit. I wasnt planning to use r/r anyway.

pipspeak
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Re: Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#5 Post by pipspeak » Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:21 pm

I had a simlar problem on my T61 and by viewing which processes were accessing the drive (through task manager, for example) I narrowed it down to some of the wireless networking-related processes (csrss.exe and lsass.exe). I can't remember the fix but I found it by googling. The HDD still pulses every 5-10 seconds but I suspect that might be down to AV, firewall, and RnR software.

I understand how infuriating it can be.
570 --> T20 --> T40 --> T43 --> T61 (4:3) --> T400 -->T420 --> T440p + X240

basketb
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Re: Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#6 Post by basketb » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:46 pm

If you haven't turned it off, it could also be that the HD is being defragmented while your computer is idle.

pipspeak
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Re: Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#7 Post by pipspeak » Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:02 pm

how do you turn continual defragmentation off? I never knew it could be turned on... I simply run a full defrag every month or so.
570 --> T20 --> T40 --> T43 --> T61 (4:3) --> T400 -->T420 --> T440p + X240

Marin85
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Re: Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#8 Post by Marin85 » Sun Jan 25, 2009 5:05 pm

pipspeak wrote:how do you turn continual defragmentation off? I never knew it could be turned on... I simply run a full defrag every month or so.
It is not continual, it´s scheduled. Check scheduled tasks or, alternatively, Disk Defrag under System Tools and disable "Run on a schedule" (you could also change the schedule).

Hope this helps

Marin
IBM Lenovo Z61p | 15.4'' WUXGA | Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 2x 2.16GHz | 4 GB Kingston HyperX | Hitachi 7K500 500 GB + WD 1TB (USB) | ATI Mobility FireGL V5200 | ThinkPad Atheros a/b/g | Analog Devices AD1981HD | Win 7 x86 + ArchLinux 2009.08 x64 (number crunching)

basketb
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Re: Constant Hard Disk Activity T400 Win XP

#9 Post by basketb » Sun Jan 25, 2009 11:53 pm

pipspeak wrote:how do you turn continual defragmentation off? I never knew it could be turned on... I simply run a full defrag every month or so.
There is probably an easier way than what I describe here (but I wouldn't know). What you need is TweakUI from MS. It allows you to set many things that otherwise can only be changed by modifying the registry directly. Within TweakUI, there is a section called "General" and then there is a check box for "Optimize hard disk while idle", which is checked by default. Uncheck that check box. BTW: as far as I know, this is different from the defragmentation that you can schedule with the Windows scheduler.

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