Windows 7 problem, need some help

[hfbroady]

When I startup windows the hard drive acts like it is really busy, and I'm not even doing anything. This happens even when I'm not connected to the internet, I ran virus scan and found tracking cookies which I deleted, then I ran SpywareTerminator, found one critical object in startup, openned masconfig and disabled it and restarted, with the same results. I alos ran a free reg scan and it found 5500 errors, but I could fix or clean them because I have to buy it, and I have no money. So any help would be great.
I'm running windows 7 home premium 64-bit
Thank you anyone and everyone
Heath

 

[alphanumeric]

I wouldn't get too bent out of shape about the 5500 registry errors. A lot of those free scans exaggerate the errors found to suck you into buying the paid version. And when you do they are more likely to cause more problems than fix the bogus ones they listed.
As for the hard drive use, it may be the indexing service or something similar that is causing it. You may have to look at what processes or services are running to figure it out. If it is the indexing service it will eventually slow down once it has indexed most of the files on the hard drive.

 

[Tews]

As far as your drive activity is concerned, it sounds like its indexing... this is normal and should settle down eventually...

 

[Hopalong X]

+1 for Alpha and Tews.
Indexing, antivirus and update checks kicking in.

 

[Petey7]

Since it is when you first start up windows it could be your startup items and various windows services starting. Superfetch should help in that area overtime but otherwise it is pretty normal for there to be hard drive activity when you first startup windows which dies down once it has been running for a few minutes.

 

[hfbroady]

Thank you all for the replies.
The hard drive has been running hard for about 4hours now, How long does the indexing last?
thanks
Heath

 

[Tews]

It all depends on how big the drive is...

 

[hfbroady]

the hd is 218GB's...just want to make sure there is nothing wrong I spend a lot of time in front of my computer. It acts slow sometime too is that normal during indexing?

 

[Bill2]

If i were you, i'd turn off superfetch and indexing to test.

Disable Windows 7 SuperFetch

Speed Up or Disable Windows Search Indexing in Vista - How-To Geek

And what AV are you using? I've never had one that consumed CPU at startup other than Symantec. Turn off any startup scans, you should be able to locate that setting in the AV config window.

If any of this helps, you're on your way. Otherwise, you need to look elsewhere.

 

[Petey7]

The best way to figure out what is using your hard drive is to open resource monitor. You can either type resoruce monitor into the start menu search box and press enter, or open task manager (ctrl+shift+esc), go to the performance tab and press the resource monitor button. Once resource montor is open you can go to the disk tab and you can see what is using your hard drive. The other tabs can provide information on RAM and CPU usage as well.

 

[EzioAuditore]

Follow above member's advices. Also, make sure that the HDD isnt much fragmented as that may cause higher disk activity as it has to search for the file parts here and there..

 

[hfbroady]

It is the hard drive indexing because I just stopped that and disabled it and the HD is still running hard. I have posted a screenshot of the resource monitor disk tab what should I turn off.
Thanks
Heath

 

[hfbroady]

I turn off Superfech, and viewed the indexer an it said it was complete. I have attached a screenshot of the resource monitor what do or can I turn off.
Thanks
Heath

 

[EzioAuditore]

According to the pics you attached, you've Norton AV installed, right? As we can see, it's the culprit which is causing much write activity. Disable it's start-up scan if there's any option for it and reduce the scan's intensity/depth level to medium if it's set to higher value. It'd be more b better if you can switch to any other light AV.
Disable Indexing and Superfetch and regular defrags (as per your choice). This should reduce some load on HDD.

 

[hfbroady]

Actually I don't have Norton installed nor do I use it, I use CA security suite, so maybe I need to find the norton file in startup and disable it.
Thanks
Heath

 

[Petey7]

Disable Indexing and Superfetch and regular defrags (as per your choice). This should reduce some load on HDD.

I would just like to say that I do not recommend disabling any of the three. It's up to you, but I find superfetch gets everything up and running faster when I first startup Windows and even people with SSD's say they see a performance increase with superfetch on. Defrag should be left on so that you don't have to worry about your HDD becoming fragmented, which will increase HDD activity more than anything, and keep your computer running fast. Indexing I'm not as concerned about but it does speed up file searching. If you never use the search function than turn it of. If you do use it, leave indexing on.

 

[EzioAuditore]

Disable Indexing and Superfetch and regular defrags (as per your choice). This should reduce some load on HDD.

I would just like to say that I do not recommend disabling any of the three. It's up to you, but I find superfetch gets everything up and running faster when I first startup Windows and even people with SSD's say they see a performance increase with superfetch on. Defrag should be left on so that you don't have to worry about your HDD becoming fragmented, which will increase HDD activity more than anything, and keep your computer running fast. Indexing I'm not as concerned about but it does speed up file searching. If you never use the search function than turn it of. If you do use it, leave indexing on.

actuallyi meant the same by writing "(as per your choice)", I should have used some punctuation marks to point that out..

 

[EzioAuditore]

Actually I don't have Norton installed nor do I use it, I use CA security suite, so maybe I need to find the norton file in startup and disable it.
Thanks
Heath

You might have had it before and some files might have got left due to incomplete uninstall. Always check if there's any uninstall tool available for your AV/Security app from it's vendor before you uninstall it with built-in or any 3rd party uninstaller.

 

[hfbroady]

Thank you for the suggestions everyone. After turn service after service off I was able to get the HDD to run normal now. I turned Superfetch back on. I ended up turning services off based on the manufacture, like search settings:Manufacturer Spigot,Inc. I also set my Spyware terminator to manual for all of it's services, and I turned off Synaptics Pointing Device Driver: Form Synaptics Incorporated this was the last one I turned off, than when I restarted the problem was fixed. I also turned of some 02Flash thing that had no manfucturer. So I'm really not to sure what actually did it, I would think that the search settings would have done it just because of the name.
Thank you so much everyone for the help
Heath

 

[Tews]

Glad you were able to sort everything out!