hard drive just chruning on and on and on 2

[wvdba]

hi,
i have a couple questions:
first: can an IDE hard drive in a thinkpad t43 be replaced by a SATA drive? i understand that the hdd cage and base plug must be changed, but can it be done? or does it need chipset to support it?
second: a dell inspiron 8100, when turned on, the hard drive keeps running and running and running for about 10-12 minutes with no processes active in the task manager. what would cause this to happen?
thanks.

 

[vacunita]

Likely no.

You are talking about un-soldering, and re-soldering a new interface to the MB. Unless you have any knowledge of chip programming its unlikely to work.


There is of course the option of an interface converter from SATA to IDE, however, this poses the problem of space. Will the Drive fit in the space with an additional converter however small it may be plugged into it?

I think its easier to just buy an IDE hard drive. Cheaper too.

As for the running drive, does it do this when in Windows?

It maybe Windows is doing something, loading stuff from the Drive, or maybe the Antivirus performing a scan.

A Drive will likely never be un-accessed for more than nano seconds at a time. As the OS keeps reading it for data, and anything else that may run may require access to it at some point.







----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wvdba]

vacunita,
thanks for your posting. i think i'll forget about IDE/SATA drive, since i don't know anything about soldering.
as for the churning of the drive. it loads windows. there's nothing on the start-up. avast anti-virus loads. the power-on scan is disabled. i have other laptops (thinkpad) that has avast anti-virus in it too, but it doesn't behave like this. is there anyway to find out what windows is doing during this 10-15 minute period? anyway to reduce disk I/O when the machine is just idle?
thanks.

 

[BadBigBen]

As to 1: already answered, just go with a normal 2.5" IDE drive...

As to 2: it could be Indexing or Windows Search 4.0 going away at it...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wvdba]

thanks BadBigBen.
how would i disable windows search 4.0 and/or indexing, please? do i need these for windows to function?
thanks.

 

[vacunita]

No, indexing only makes searching faster. But is not required.

Can you tell us what version of Windows you are running?

How much RAM does the laptop have? It may be Windows is accessing the swap file instead of RAM for whatever reason.



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[BadBigBen]

Turn off indexing and speed up Windows XP

To turn off indexing:

1. Open up "My Computer."
2. Right-click on your hard drive (usually "C:") and choose "Properties."
3. Uncheck the box at the bottom that reads "Allow Indexing Service to..."
4. Click OK, and files will be removed from memory. This removal may take a few minutes to complete.

To disable the indexing service:

1. In the "Start" menu, choose "Run."
2. Type "services.msc" and press Enter.
3. Scroll-down to "Indexing Service" and double-click it.
4. If the service status is "Running", then stop it by pressing the "Stop" button.
5. To make sure this service doesn't run again, under "Startup Type:", choose "Disabled."

Windows search will still work if you perform these steps, but it will work more slowly than if indexing was enabled.

Source: lifehacker


Turn off the new Windows search 4.0 area in your taskbar

and as Vacunita pointed out, both are not needed for windows operation, but searches in the future are just not as quick as they may be with them active...


Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wvdba]

vacunita and
BadBigBen
thanks. this is great information. i'm definitely try them in a while. because, it has jut gotten so bad. 12-15 minutes for machine to stablize is just too long. i'm running windows xp pro sp3. one other thing that i noticed too, is that when you are in another app, such is dos window, and waiting to run something, it interrupts the tasks and starts churning the hard drive for about 3-4 minutes. it's very frustrating. i'm hoping indexing and search 4.0 will fix that also.
thanks.
i'll post the result.

 

[BadBigBen]

Q: How is the boot up time? is it slow or normal?

A: It could be that DMA is turned off for that controller, to check that, go to the device manager and double click the IDE ATA / ATAPI Controller there under the PRIMARY CHANNEL see if the transfer mode is set to DMA...

if it is set to PIO, then DEINSTALL both the primary and secondary channels, and reboot...

windows will then reset the DMA status and speed things up...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[vacunita]

Also important is the amount of RAM. As i said it may be running out of memory and turning to the swap file instead.



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wvdba]

boot up time is normal, kind of. rams is 256mb.

 

[vacunita]

RAM is on the limit. WinXP will run on 256MB, but will in fact access the swap file more often. This file is on the hard drive, which can account for the added drive usage.

I had a Compaq laptop that did the same thing, until I added 512Mb more for a total of 768Mb

Are you by any chance getting "Virtual Memory Too Low" messages?






----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[BadBigBen]

Vacunita probably "hit the nail on the head" with the RAM...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wvdba]

CASE SOLVED.
I right clicked c: drive / properties. disabled indexing on the drive and all the subfolders.
then under services, i set indexing service to manual.
it quit churning for good. it's good to go. the memory seems to whine a little bit. but, only when you launch an app. it just takes a bit longer. but, NO CHURNING FOR 15 MINUTES.
thanks everybody. i also checked the DMA UNDER device manager it's set to DMA IF AVAILABLE.
THANKS everybody. indexing was the problem.
cheers.

 

[manhunter2826]

Great to see your problem solved. Don't wish to hijack the thread but does Indexing only/primarily take place on boot-up or does it occur also otherwise. If the latter I think I'd be tempted to turn it off also. Thanks as always.

 

[wvdba]

manhunter2826,
no problem sharing my experience and what i learn here with everybody. the churning starts at boot-up. it goes on for about 12-15 minutes. i have to go do something and come back to see if it has stopped. that's not all. sometimes after the laptop has been on for about 20-30 minutes, it starts that crap again. specially when i'm in the middle of something, like a dos app is asking for a response and time is ticking on the app, then the app blows up. disabling indexing service and indexing on the hard drive, is definitely the way to go. and i don't think it affected my search function when i was looking for files and stuff. so, there you have it. thanks everybody.
cheers.

 

[BadBigBen]

wvba - let me guess, your drive is formatted with FAT32...

When Indexing Service is started, time-intensive disk scans aren't required on NTFS file system volumes. Disk volumes converted to NTFS file system 5.0 format support the use of Update Sequence Number (USN) from the change journal. Indexing Service benefits directly from the sparse file formats and native property sets of the NTFS file system.

source: Microsoft


manhunter2826 - the following may be of interest:

The Indexing Service is designed to perform its intensive hard-disk indexing operations when the computer is idle. The service pauses whenever it senses activity from the keyboard or mouse, so it will never drag down system performance when you're using your computer.

source: TechRepublik




Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wvdba]

BadBigBen,
thanks. the hard drive is NTFS. i'm 90% sure, but i'll double check. but, when i do activity, it seems like it doesn't care, and it goes on doing its own thing - i.e. churning. but, it's working ok now.
thanks again.

 

[manhunter2826]

Thank you both wv and Ben (I think I will disable also).

 

[manhunter2826]

Well, in the event I did attempt to disable but XP insisted on scanning every file in c:\docs and data etc. It seemed like it would take for ages so I clicked on cancel. Why on earth can't XP just sometimes do things quickly.