Thinkpads Forum

I've just got a T61p 646067U 2G memory with Vista Ultimate. My hard drive is running crazy everytime after I boot it up.

Is vista doing anything heavily after boot up? Index service? System restore? Any idea?

henryan wrote:I've just got a T61p 646067U 2G memory with Vista Ultimate. My hard drive is running crazy everytime after I boot it up.

Is vista doing anything heavily after boot up? Index service? System restore? Any idea?

Yes, the indexer runs thru its database after each bootup. Not once, but -three times!- This is all part of what makes Vista so "loveable" and gives you that "Wow"!

Indexing cannot be shut off in Vista, but you can go in and deselect all the folders you don't care to have indexed. This will shorten the thrashing considerably.

By the way, Windows Desktop Search in XP (for those of us who run that option) has the same massive bug. Microsoft appears unwilling to fix this. I've read thread after thread about this, and MS just sort of waves it off. They claim it will be fixed "real soon now".

One solution is to simply go to Hibernate rather than shutdown. This will still take all power off the machine, but the indexer will not do its goofy thing after coming out of Hibernate, like it does after a cold start..

Remember I read a topic somewhere, you can disable the 'service'. Change it from 'Automatic' to 'Manual' or 'Disable'.

henryan wrote:Remember I read a topic somewhere, you can disable the 'service'. Change it from 'Automatic' to 'Manual' or 'Disable'.

The fasted way is to simply disable the Windows Search service. Run Services (just type “Services” at the Start Search bar), right click on the Windows Search service and select “Properties”. Then choose “Disabled” for the start type. Afterwards, you have to stop this service by right clicking on it and selecting “Stop".

imho, the better method is to open up the Indexing Options control panel and delete everything except the Start Menu from the list.   this will drop the indexed items considerably while retaining the Start Search function -- which i find extremely handy.   my drive doesn't run abnormally under vista and i still have indexing fully intact.

I've disabled the Windows search service, but seems it's still doing the same after boot up. Disk IO on pagefile and System Volume Information are very high.

Is it the System Restore service?

henryan wrote:I've disabled the Windows search service, but seems it's still doing the same after boot up. Disk IO on pagefile and System Volume Information are very high.

If you go to Task Scheduler (in Accessories) you will see that there are several tasks that run from time to time. (unlike XP which does not do that unless a program puts it in)

One of the tasks is a defragmentation run done once weekly. It may run just after boot if it isn't finished from last session.

Again, I suggest going into Indexing Options and deselect a whole bunch of items that indexer looks at and see if this brings the hard drive to a stop any sooner.

When I ran vista on my T60 for about two months, I had constant hard drive accessing. I got rid of the indexing stuff and it didn't go away completely.

Miller88 wrote:When I ran vista on my T60 for about two months, I had constant hard drive accessing. I got rid of the indexing stuff and it didn't go away completely.

Did you downgrade to XP?

obviously indexing isn't the problem then.   if this is a factory installation then check Lenovo Maintenance Manager for scheduled maintenance tasks.   uninstall the app if you don't need it.   also, check the disk defragmenter schedule:
start > type "disk" in start search > open Disk Defragmenter > Modify Schedule... > change to a weekly schedule

vista might take a bit of tweaking to set up but i assure you that the idle processes can be stopped.

Based on my view of my own machine right after a bootup, using Resource Monitor, and Vista's proclivity for touching files that are not themselves part of the startup but are applications I typically run eventually, I think my own hard drive spins up considerably trying to use SuperFetch.

If you've already tried disabling the Windows Search service, and you've eliminated other desktop type search tools, and maybe gone so far as to turn off AV packages and turned off Defender, you might try disabling the SuperFetch service and see if this quiets the machine after bootup.

erik wrote:obviously indexing isn't the problem then. if this is a factory installation then check Lenovo Maintenance Manager for scheduled maintenance tasks. uninstall the app if you don't need it. also, check the disk defragmenter schedule:
start > type "disk" in start search > open Disk Defragmenter > Modify Schedule... > change to a weekly schedule

vista might take a bit of tweaking to set up but i assure you that the idle processes can be stopped.

I've already turned that diskeeper thing off, but still the same. :S

henryan wrote:I've already turned that diskeeper thing off, but still the same. :S

not diskeeper, windows disk defragmenter.

if all else fails, try a clean installation following this guide.   my clean installation of ultimate x64 is working flawlessly and without random, lengthy disk accesses.   i have indexing, windows search, superfetch, and windows disk defragmenter all enabled, optimized, and scheduled as necessary.

without having your thinkpad in front of me, i don't know what else to recommend.

at startup the files pagefile.sys and readyboost.sfcache are the most accessed files as "resource monitor" shows.
I have 2 GB of ram and virtual memory size is managed by windows.

Has anybody noticed a change after stopping SuperFetch service. I did not.

Seems I don't have windows disk defragmenter, it just goes to the diskeeper.

henryan wrote:Seems I don't have windows disk defragmenter, it just goes to the diskeeper.

I'm not familiar with Vista, but on XP I can run the Windows disk defragmenter in place of Diskeeper (which is also installed) using the following command: Start > Run > defrag c: -v

henryan wrote:Seems I don't have windows disk defragmenter, it just goes to the diskeeper.

all vista installations have windows disk defragmenter.   if you can't find it then go to Start > Run > type "dfrgui.exe" and click OK.

another thing to check is your windows defender schedule.   Start > Control Panel > Windows Defender > Tools > Options > change schedule to once per week with a type of 'Quick scan' instead of 'Full system scan'.

just so you know, every time you reboot Vista loads up the RAM with SuperFetch data. This is it preloads all the frequently used programs into memory from the HDD. This is why it makes sense to put the system to sleep or Hibernate instead of shutdown. After those sleep states the system doesn't load anything again so it's good and ready to go.

It is doing a lot writing in C:\System Volume Information\{e8854e63-7c4d-11dc-a8ca-001c2512a90a}{380...

Any idea?