Comments for Why, when I'm doing nothing at all, will my hard disk suddenly start thrashing?

Comment from Douglas Swehla on 2011-11-20

2011-11-20T18:12:40Z

Leo,

I've downloaded the zip files for both Process Monitor and Process Explorer to my Downloads folder. After extracting, the exe files run from there just fine. This is nice for portability, as I can stick them on a USB drive and troubleshoot other PCs.

For my own PC (Win7 Home), I'd like to give them a more permanent home, and wonder what would be most logical. Program Files, Program Files (x86), Downloaded Program Files, system, System32, some other existing folder, or a Utilities folder I create myself? What do you do?

I actually have my own folder structure that I copy from machine to machine, so on my machines you'll find it in c:\usr\bin. Basically I have a bunch of portable tools that I keep therein.

20-Nov-2011

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Comment from Mike McCormick on 2011-06-09

2011-06-09T17:42:51Z

Aside from doing the routine maintenance items; i.e. disk defrag, registry cleaning, deleting temp files, I recommend doing the this. Uninstall your Anti-virus program and reboot. If this doesn't give you back a new computer high performance I would be shocked. Sure, it could be your hard drive going but what do you think causes most hard drive failures, misuse - drive thrashing, multiple PC restarts (power bumps) viruses and poor hard drive maintenance.

If you are using McAfee or Norton, especially the ones custom tailored for Verizon and Comcast like I was using you should gain back a stable PC if you uninstall them. I replaced Norton with Avira and I no longer have PC issues.

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Comment from Joe Harper on 2010-01-23

2010-01-24T00:25:57Z

My harddrive will start thrashing, and the screen goes blank. I can hear the processor cooling fan kick into high speed. This doesnt happen very often but it will do it at an idle or when im working. I am running xp with sp3. I do have spyware/virus programs. I am cut off from accessing the computer when this happens so I have no idea what is causing it or what happens as I have to pull the plug to stop it. I let it run for 10 mins one time to see if it would stop.
Any ideas where I should start? Will "filemon" record all activity even if I pull the plug?

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Comment from willgill on 2009-12-17

2009-12-17T12:26:29Z

I had a similar problem. My hard drive would thrash constantly on a pretty fast Core i7 compy with 12Gig RAM. It was infuriating. I searched the intertubes and came across this thread. I tried what was suggested, but it didn't fix my problem. I did fix my problem though.

It turns out my outlook.ost file was too big. I found out from Microsoft that you may experience issues with .ost files over 2Gig. Well, mine was over 19Gig!

I closed down Outlook. Then I just renamed the file outlook_bak20091216.ost. I then launched Outlook and it rebuilt the outlook.ost file from the Exchange server. My new outlook.ost file is under 1Gig. Better yet, no more hard drive thrashing.

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Comment from John P. Brown on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T19:20:13Z

I ran process monitor on my wife's computer because its HD keeps running even though I have shut off indexing and defrag. It has hundreds of entries where snippit is opened and closed. She doesn't even know what snippit is. I do use it on my computer and have months ago on hers. Is it likely that there is some sort of key logging or similar spy process going on?

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Comment from James Baring on 2007-03-15

2007-03-15T12:47:36Z

To stop thrashing hard drive in Windows XP, alter the setting of memory from the default (adjust for best performance of programs) to 'adjust for best performance of system cache'. There are no bad side effects.

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Comment from Anne Dakmak on 2007-03-10

2007-03-10T22:37:37Z

All the above suggestions are 'over my head' so, I guess I will have to listen to the growling that is called thrashing by the literate above. I, too, wonder if this is taking up disk space which seems to be decreasing as time goes by and I do not add downloads or new programs. Defrag.,scanned often.

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Comment from Cec on 2006-08-29

2006-08-29T22:21:22Z

If your machine is tweaked to perfection, and you have not disabled optimise hard drive on idle, and you have smallish clusters and or lots of data on your drives, defrag hangs.

Norton 2006, Outlook cleanup, Outlook Express Cleanup, Scheduled Disk Doctor defragmenting, Viruses and Spyware also do create the same disk slow scenario.

Personally, I disable deframgenting when idle, format my drives with 64K clusters (lose a bit of space but pickup loads of disk speed), and defrag via bat file on startup.

It's a good idea to disable system restore on non essential drives. I actually don't use it, as my OS is installed on a partition, and Documents and Settings and data files are on another, that is backed up. On system failure, I reinstall the OS and programs, do some registry tweaks, and point my data files to certain folders, and I'm back in business.

I've had so many problems with Windows on our network the past month. Viruses have been on the increase. I'm moving some machines over to Linux and running Windows in a virtual machine for certain applications. I will still however need a single Windows dedicated machine for certain software.

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Comment from Andrew Goodall on 2006-04-27

2006-04-27T08:46:54Z

I believe it is Norton Antivirus 2006 Autoupdate program that is stuck and is causing problems. Symantec who own the product won't help find the answer without a 39.95 Euro charge and suggested I contact a local engineer to get my problem sorted. Any help appreciated...

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Comment from Andrew Goodall on 2006-04-18

2006-04-18T10:41:14Z

Hello Leo,
My laptop has been thrashing the HD, Also MS WORD won't open and after it tries it leaves a rectangle of screen that does not repaint on the desktop also Norton Internet security 2006 does not open. I have phoned Symantec and run SYMNRT.exe and reinstalled Norton Internet security 2006 and reinstalled Norton Ghost 10 and reinstalled Word 2003 pro but I am right back at the starting point. Ctl Alt Del does not shut the computer down so I have to manually shut it down. The last time I restarted the laptop the screen was black so I manually shutdown again, after leaving the laptop shutdown for an hour I restarted it and it opened fine but the above problems are still there any help appreciated.
My laptop specs are
990 Megabytes Installed Memory, Slot 'U5' has 512 MB, Slot 'U6' has 512, Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600), 2.67 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4, 8 kilobyte primary memory, cache, 512 kilobyte secondary memory cache, 40.00 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity, 26.93 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space, SiS M650 [Display adapter]Default Monitor,

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Comment from Leo on 2006-04-09

2006-04-09T19:05:55Z

Actually, try letting it "thrash" for a while. Outlook compacts its PST file in the background at idle time. At some point the file will have been compacted, and the thrashing should stop. (And technically it's not thrashing ... unless it somehow impacts your ability to do other things.) Conversely you could force compaction and see if that makes the thrashing stop as well.

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Comment from Simon on 2006-04-07

2006-04-08T00:10:27Z

Hello Leo & Everyone

My hard disk has started thrashing whenever Outlook 2003 has been running on idle for a few minutes. If I close Outlook 2003 the disk stops thrashing.

I tried FileMon and captured the screen as soon as the thrashing started - it was full of the line "OUTLOOK.EXE:2144"

The machine is running Windows 2000 Pro with Service Pack 4. It has 1.5Gb of RAM and the hard drive is a 123Gb IBM. Can anyone help me?

Many thanks

Simon.

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Comment from Peter on 2006-03-03

2006-03-03T12:39:56Z

Nicely done Leo. Systm restore was using a LOT of resources. All is quiet now...

Thanks,

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Comment from Leo on 2006-02-14

2006-02-14T16:52:36Z

Have you emptied your recycle bin? This article may also help: http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_tell_whats_taking_up_so_much_disk_space.html

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Comment from Eric on 2006-02-14

2006-02-14T10:35:22Z

My Pc's hard disk is still 85% full after all cleaning and removal of non-necessities. After defrag. there is not very much free space leftover either. I removed a bunch of media files and it seemed like I had less space after I erased them. How can I clean it up without compromising the programs and files that I have(which isn't very many).Thanx for your help.

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Comment from anakha on 2004-10-27

2004-10-28T06:44:33Z

Only 128mb of ram under WinXP is likely to be one of your problems. Your swap file is consuming it all. Buy at least 512mb of ram, preferably 1gb to run XP. You likely have an onboard video card which is consuming 32mb of your system's ram which is why only 96mb appears under Windows. Does your motherboard have an AGP port? If so, I'd recommend buying a videocard for it. Check whether the motherboard supports AGP 1x / 2x / 4x / or 8x and buy a compatible video card.

Your hard drive will thrash because you've told it to have 784mb minimum swap file. The access time to your hard drive is magnitudes slower than for your ram. Hence your system runs like a dog.

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Comment from thomas on 2004-06-10

2004-06-11T06:34:08Z

PC very slow, upto 3 mins opening or closing progs prog seems to "wash" down the screen, icons disappear leaving only background pic for 5-10 secs, then reappear); hardisk access light almost continuously on, etc.(1)Resorted to original config. using System Restore, but initial improvement, then back to SLOW;(2)Configured WinXP for best performance, with virtual memory set at 754 MB (min) and 1024 MB (max) as per suggestions of HP customer support;(3) Virus checks (Norton, AVG) are clean;(4) SpybotS&D and Ad-Aware cleaned adware/spyware and now show clean;(5) Used a RegCleaner to clean the system without alteration;(6)installed and enabled firewall (successively by Norton, WinXP and ZoneAlarm Pro);(7) at HP customer support's suggestion, closed all startup progs except antivirus and firewall, used Disk Cleaner & Defrag, then restarted the pc. Even uninstalled some progs I didn't use frequently, all to no avail; (8)HD capacity shows drive C is 29% free (9.7 GB) and drive D 15% free at 6

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Comment from LeoN on 2003-09-17

2003-09-17T16:51:32Z

A *new* common cause is Windows XP's System Restore. It monitors changes to a wide range of files and squirrels away restore information. This often looks like unexpected disk activity as it does so.

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