Thrashin'

Thrashing disk drive - Does your hard drive start working like crazy for no apparent reason when you aren't even using it? - Disk Thrashing

There are many many possible reasons for this annoyance.  Try these possible solutions in this order.
Please let me know if you have any comments or any other suggestions.

Warning:  Before starting to troubleshoot, you should back up all your important data files to a CD/DVD or other media.

  1. To find out what's happening on your system, use a filesystem monitoring tool. 
  2. Virus, worm, or some other malware. 
  3. Symantec's NIS (Norton Internet Security) or NAV (Norton AntiVirus) programs.
  4. Zone Alarm Firewall.  If you are using Windows Firewall or Norton's Firewall, you can ignore this.
  5. Turn off the Indexing function.
  6. Turn off Optimize hard disk when idle
  7. RAM - Do you have enough memory in your system?  You need at least 512MB for WindowsXP.  A GB (1024MB) would be better.
    The more RAM you have, the less the system will have to save to disk using the pagefile.
  8. Other things to try:
    1. Clean up your hard drive so that you have at least a GB of free space.
    2. Empty the Recycle Bin
    3. Scandisk = check the disk for errors
    4. Defrag = optimize the disk
    5. Disable System Restore
    6. Unplug the network card

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