Lots of Hard Drive Activity when doing nothing? 2

[EvilTwinOfAtrus]

Hi,

Ever since I'ved used Windows Xp Pro (on several machines) I've come accross a problem with all of them. After about 20 minutes of leaving the computer, there is lots of hard drive activity for roughly 5 minutes and then the cycle starts again. Indexing is turned off, there are no background programs. Can anyone help me? I don't want it making that noise when I'm trying to get to sleep .

Thanks,
Karl

 

[nelljack]

I am concerned with the defrag option running all the time. I don't think that is good for the hdd. Can someone tell me how to turn this off?

 

[bcastner]

It does not run constantly.

I cannot conceive that it could hurt your hard disk. If I had to venture a quess, because of the contiguous disk space optomization for your most used files that is at the core of the logic of this idle process, your hard disk with this feature enabled will last longer.

But where there is a will there usually is a way under XP:

Start, Run, regedit

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
Modify/Create the Value Data Type(s) and Value Name(s) as detailed below.
Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value]
Value Name: Enable
Setting for Value: [N = Disabled / Y = Enabled]

Exit Regedit and Reboot.

Some of the discussion above might have confused or muddied the issue as to whether this is a good thing. I would like you to at least consider my professional opinion that the process is a good thing, and the default settings should not be modifed.

Bill Castner

 

[nelljack]

Thanks Bill. I will keep your notes and if needed I have it for reference.

I won't monkey with this setting for now. Kudos.

No more help needed for now.

 

[jbwright]

I'm coming into this threat late. Don't know if anybody is still following it or not. I too came here looking for answers to the mysterious HDD idleprocess. I think the system optimization is a great idea, EXCEPT when it eats up my laptop batteries! As long as I've the machine plugged in, fine. But when I'm running on batteries the last thing I want is the HDD running continously for 15 to 20 minutes after I boot up. Puts a significant dent in my battery life. When was looking for is a simple method, like an on/off switch to disable the idle process when I'm on batteries. I'll try some of the tips in the thread and see how they work. Jbwright