Windows 7: System becomes busy/pegged and unresponsive. hdd pegged.

I've been using 7mc since the initial RC's were available. Basically it's the center to our living room setup as we use it to record tv, watch movies, etc.

Last week I noticed that the main drive was getting flakey and some drive tests confirmed my suspicion that it was dying. I ordered and received a new 2TB WD AV drive on Saturday and rebuilt/reinstalled the system from the ground up using the new drive. So, this is a new install.

Two issues started to appear yesterday that I can't figure out. The first is that the system becomes busy and the hard drive becomes pegged to the point that it doesn't respond to any input (keyboard/mouse/remote). This could happen at any time (like during watching a tv show or while at the desktop). I can't tell what it's doing because I can't get to the task manager until the process stops. It will usually last for 10-15 MINS.

Since I did do a re-install from scratch, I was able to restore a good bulk of recorded TV (about 1TB) from backup. I restored this to the public/recorded tv folder and these tv shows do play. I'm wondering if having these shows from a previous installation is introducing a problem (??) with DRM. Though, like I said, they do play.

The second issue, which doesn't seem to be related to the first, is that periodically the USB remote receiver stops working (the flashback light doesn't illuminate when you press a button on the remote). Only after unplugging and replugging the USB receiver does the remote work again.

The system is the same config that it has been since 2009 running Windows 7 with the exception of the new hard drive. I'm even using the same ATI driver from 2009 since the new one was giving a video error.



Any suggestions or hints as to where to look or what process could be pegging my system would be greatly appreciated. as of now, we still don't have TV in our house and the family is getting tired of waiting!

Thanks in advance.