2nd hard drive keeps springing into life - why?! 1

[Julianne]

I successfully installed a second hard drive (slave on same channel as main hard drive) on my XP Home PC and have formatted it, etc.

The only time I use it is for making weekly backup images of my main (C) drive, so the rest of the time it should just be sitting quietly, shouldn't it?!

What I'm finding is that fairly often the drive is whirring around for a while, then it'll make a click sound and I'll hear it slow down until it's silent.

I'm assuming it's the second drive that is doing this because I don't remember hearing this sound until I installed the second drive. (Even if it's the main drive, surely it should only be whirring if I'm doing something that directly involves it, rather than, say, surfing the net?)

Does anyone know why I'm hearing this intermitten whirring and if there's a way to shut it up?!

Many thanks.

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Comtech]

Turn off system restore on that drive.
Turn off indexing service. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[Julianne]

I've turned off the indexing service on the second drive via right-clicking Properties in My Computer. How do I turn off System Restore on it? I don't have any operating system installed on the second drive.

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Comtech]

Right click My Computer, Select Properties, then the System Restore tab.
Doesn't matter if there's an OS on there or not, XP will assume System Restore applies to ALL drives/partitions in a machine. You can selectively turn it off on each drive/partition, or the whole thing. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[Julianne]

Found it, turned it off! I'll see how I go - thanks.

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

Nice post Comtech learn something new everday

 

[Comtech]

Another note: You should also disable Hibernation in the power settings section of Control Panel, if you don't use it. Hibernation has a tendency to use a huge amount of disk space, although I can't remember if it uses any on other disks, other than the boot disk. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[Julianne]

I have Hibernation turned off but yes, it wanted 511mb if I decided to turn it on!

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Julianne]

Did all of the above but alas, I just realised it's still whirring away then clicking and slowing down when it's had enough every so often. Very odd.

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Comtech]

What software have you got running? Any AV program?
Have you noticed that it spins up when you empty the recycle bin? Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[Julianne]

I have AVG anti-virus running in the background, but the whirring is happening even if I'm not in the room to be doing anything to the PC! I've not emptied the Recycle Bin at all.

I've checked AVG's settings and it seems to have detected the second drive by itself as in its "Complete Test Settings" it says both drives. I've taken the second drive's letter out of there, so I'll see if that makes a difference, but surely if the anti-virus is set to monitor both drives the main drive should start whirring every so often too?

http://www.leevalleylions.co.uk

 

[Comtech]

The main drive is probably always spinning. It's possible that the power settings for it to spin down didn't "take". I know this happens ALL the time on my XP machines, and I seem to be continually resetting the power down times.
Try setting it to Desktop Computer, and then change the times to what you want. If it's already Desktop, then change it to "Always On". Customize as you see fit. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/