My Harddrive is running constantly

[sisrace]

Hello! my old computer's HD is Running constantly. i cant get it to stop work. is it a hardware problem or software? and how can i solve it? thanks for your help

 

[Antikythera]

There's quite a few things that can have that effect. Let's start simple and work up.

How old is the hard drive?

I would check the overall space of the hard drive, good practice to have at least 20% free. The HD may also be fragmented, you can check the status of both of these from the disk defragment application. If the HD space is lower then 20%, you may want to delete temporary files from Disk cleanup.

Next I would check the RAM and Virtual memory amount, it depends on what system your running, but a good baseline is anywhere from 2gb to 4gb of ram, and 1.5x your current ram amount = virtual memory. You can confirm these from the Task Manager, under the Performance tab.

If those come up clean and fine, you may want to do a quick virus scan. I personally recommend Malwarebytes, you can find the most current version from their website at Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download

 

[pscowboy]

Is your AVG set to run a scan every time you boot up?

 

[sisrace]

Is your AVG set to run a scan every time you boot up?

nope

 

[windude99]

Hello! my old computer's HD is Running constantly. i cant get it to stop work. is it a hardware problem or software? and how can i solve it? thanks for your help

Is this the computer that is in your system specs? If not, please post its system specs in another post (you don't need to change your current system specs). Also, is your computer slower than before?
Let's try some things to help with this:
1. Try rebooting your computer. That may help with this issue.

2. Go to start, type in msconfig and press enter. Go to the startup tab and disable everything except your antivirus. Then, reboot your computer.

3. Do what antikythera said: Run Disk Defragmenter. To run disk defragmenter, go to start, type in disk defragmenter, and press enter. Click on Defragment disk. Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, too. Be sure to untick the box that at the end of the installation says "Enable Free Trial of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO."

Also, Windows 7 does things in the background, so you will see hard drive activity, even if there aren't any programs running.

 

[sisrace]

There's quite a few things that can have that effect. Let's start simple and work up.

How old is the hard drive?

I would check the overall space of the hard drive, good practice to have at least 20% free. The HD may also be fragmented, you can check the status of both of these from the disk defragment application. If the HD space is lower then 20%, you may want to delete temporary files from Disk cleanup.

Next I would check the RAM and Virtual memory amount, it depends on what system your running, but a good baseline is anywhere from 2gb to 4gb of ram, and 1.5x your current ram amount = virtual memory. You can confirm these from the Task Manager, under the Performance tab.

If those come up clean and fine, you may want to do a quick virus scan. I personally recommend Malwarebytes, you can find the most current version from their website at Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware download

The harddrive is about 3,5 years and i just made a system reset so im having 613 Gb free of a 652 gb hd
Im not having any viruses. becouse the only thing i did on the internet "with AVG on" is youtube vids, sevenforums, avg's website, javas website, minecraft.net and Feed the beast and nvidia. so i shouldnt have any viruses... Is there a easy way to see if your hd have any problems and how to fix it?. The HD led indicator is Constantly Yellow. sometimes it flickers a bit and somethimes it does turn off.. just sometimes.

 

[sisrace]

Hello! my old computer's HD is Running constantly. i cant get it to stop work. is it a hardware problem or software? and how can i solve it? thanks for your help

Is this the computer that is in your system specs? If not, please post its system specs in another post (you don't need to change your current system specs). Also, is your computer slower than before?
Let's try some things to help with this:
1. Try rebooting your computer. That may help with this issue.

2. Go to start, type in msconfig and press enter. Go to the startup tab and disable everything except your antivirus. Then, reboot your computer.

3. Do what antikythera said: Run Disk Defragmenter. To run disk defragmenter, go to start, type in disk defragmenter, and press enter. Click on Defragment disk. Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, too. Be sure to untick the box that at the end of the installation says "Enable Free Trial of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO."

Also, Windows 7 does things in the background, so you will see hard drive activity, even if there aren't any programs running.

Dont have any programs really installed right now. Have made a system reset and now im installing 98 updates and Heres the specs:
Amd Phenom 8750 Triple-Core Processor
4 Gb DDR2 Ram 400MB/s (reading all this from my computers website)
Gpu: ENGT430
500Gb HD (says in my computer that its 652 Gb
300W Psu
Windows Vista home premium
( Compaq Presario CQ5043SC )

 

[windude99]

Hello! my old computer's HD is Running constantly. i cant get it to stop work. is it a hardware problem or software? and how can i solve it? thanks for your help

Is this the computer that is in your system specs? If not, please post its system specs in another post (you don't need to change your current system specs). Also, is your computer slower than before?
Let's try some things to help with this:
1. Try rebooting your computer. That may help with this issue.

2. Go to start, type in msconfig and press enter. Go to the startup tab and disable everything except your antivirus. Then, reboot your computer.

3. Do what antikythera said: Run Disk Defragmenter. To run disk defragmenter, go to start, type in disk defragmenter, and press enter. Click on Defragment disk. Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, too. Be sure to untick the box that at the end of the installation says "Enable Free Trial of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO."

Also, Windows 7 does things in the background, so you will see hard drive activity, even if there aren't any programs running.

Dont have any programs really installed right now. Have made a system reset and now im installing 98 updates and Heres the specs:
Amd Phenom 8750 Triple-Core Processor
4 Gb DDR2 Ram 400MB/s (reading all this from my computers website)
Gpu: ENGT430
500Gb HD (says in my computer that its 652 Gb
300W Psu
Windows Vista home premium
( Compaq Presario CQ5043SC )

That says Vista Home Premium. Is that what it has always run or is it running Windows 7 now?

 

[sisrace]

Is this the computer that is in your system specs? If not, please post its system specs in another post (you don't need to change your current system specs). Also, is your computer slower than before?
Let's try some things to help with this:
1. Try rebooting your computer. That may help with this issue.

2. Go to start, type in msconfig and press enter. Go to the startup tab and disable everything except your antivirus. Then, reboot your computer.

3. Do what antikythera said: Run Disk Defragmenter. To run disk defragmenter, go to start, type in disk defragmenter, and press enter. Click on Defragment disk. Run Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, too. Be sure to untick the box that at the end of the installation says "Enable Free Trial of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO."

Also, Windows 7 does things in the background, so you will see hard drive activity, even if there aren't any programs running.

Dont have any programs really installed right now. Have made a system reset and now im installing 98 updates and Heres the specs:
Amd Phenom 8750 Triple-Core Processor
4 Gb DDR2 Ram 400MB/s (reading all this from my computers website)
Gpu: ENGT430
500Gb HD (says in my computer that its 652 Gb
300W Psu
Windows Vista home premium
( Compaq Presario CQ5043SC )

That says Vista Home Premium. Is that what it has always run or is it running Windows 7 now?

Still vista

 

[windude99]

Dont have any programs really installed right now. Have made a system reset and now im installing 98 updates and Heres the specs:
Amd Phenom 8750 Triple-Core Processor
4 Gb DDR2 Ram 400MB/s (reading all this from my computers website)
Gpu: ENGT430
500Gb HD (says in my computer that its 652 Gb
300W Psu
Windows Vista home premium
( Compaq Presario CQ5043SC )

That says Vista Home Premium. Is that what it has always run or is it running Windows 7 now?

Still vista

Does it have a Windows 7 upgrade?

 

[sisrace]

That says Vista Home Premium. Is that what it has always run or is it running Windows 7 now?

Still vista

Does it have a Windows 7 upgrade?

Nope. BECOUSE WINDOWS 7 CAME A WEEK AFTER I BOUGHT IT. Its my usuall luck....

 

[windude99]

Still vista

Does it have a Windows 7 upgrade?

Nope. BECOUSE WINDOWS 7 CAME A WEEK AFTER I BOUGHT IT. Its my usuall luck....

Ok. When you say system reset, do you mean you restored the computer from the factory partition? If so, provide me a screenshot of the Uninstall a Program page in Control Panel. It probably has bloatware on it from Compaq.

 

[sisrace]

Does it have a Windows 7 upgrade?

Nope. BECOUSE WINDOWS 7 CAME A WEEK AFTER I BOUGHT IT. Its my usuall luck....

Ok. When you say system reset, do you mean you restored the computer from the factory partition? If so, provide me a screenshot of the Uninstall a Program page in Control Panel. It probably has bloatware on it from Compaq.

Will do that as soon as i can

 

[nilank]

Hello! my old computer's HD is Running constantly. i cant get it to stop work. is it a hardware problem or software? and how can i solve it? thanks for your help

I don't know what you actually wanna do but if you want your HD to automatically turn off when idle, you can do the following:

• Click Start rb: > Control Panel > Power options
• Click "Change plan settings" against the selected power plan:

• Now click "Change advanced power settings":

• Expand hard disk > Turn off hard disk after > Set the time in minutes:

• Click OK. Done.

Sorry if I posted something you did not need.

 

[buystockinfun]

It might be something simple like CHROME. Are you running Chrome? I use it sometimes. Just opened Task manager and HDD is going like crazy, I can hear it. Close Chrome and it goes to basically zero and stops making all that racket.

 

[sisrace]

Sp here's the thing. I've got myself a new computer. win 8.1, amd fx 8350, gtx 660 1tb sshd and 2tb wd green. this computer was first build with the secondary hdd as the old harddrive this thread is about. when i made the hdd into a secondary hdd it had an auto shut off. but when it started it made quite loud head noises and a noise where a humbeling sound faded in and faded out slowly. i then got the 2tb wd green and put the old seagate to rest on a shelf.. when i pick it up and spin it next to my hear, i hear a squeeking noise as the disc turns. this harddrive has bad bearings. its old and it belongs to the shelf now. so this thread is marked as "hopeless case"

 

[Kirbert]

I FOUND IT! It's a crummy little piece of software called Seagate Dashboard, and it's installed automatically when you plug in a Seagate external HD. This POS software does something about once a second, no tellin' what, but it involves RAM. Since my computer's 1GB of RAM is largely in use -- the anti-virus software seems to chew up about half of it -- the system goes to virtual RAM and engages the hard drive. Getting the virtual RAM readjusted takes about a second -- just in time for Seagate Dashboard to hit it AGAIN! The HD remains in a permanent state of activation, nothing else on the 'puter works as it should, and none of this shows up on a list of activities!

The fix is simple:

Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools
double-click on Services
scroll down to Seagate Dashboard Service
right-click on it and hit "Stop". Your 'puter will work better IMMEDIATELY.
right-click on it again and change it from "automatic" to "manual" -- or even "disable" -- so it won't bother you again.

Something keeps looking for Seagate Dashboard on bootup. That's probably the Memeo Instant Backup. Whatever, someone else can figure out how to clean that up.