Vista hard drive always running

[zaragoza]

Hello, I bought a new laptop, and I see my hard drive is running like crazy, never stops. The led showing the hard drive activity is always on. I have Vista and the hard drive is always running. Can anyone help? I heard it is some service that causes it, but I can't remember which one. Thanks.

[yaris]

There can be many reasons for Vista hard drive always running.

Indexing service: The first thing is the indexing service. The indexing service is used by Vista to speed up searches. But if you do not do any searches, you can turn it off without any problems. Just go to services and set the service to disabled.

Superfetch: Superfetch preloads files into RAM. It preloads those files that it expects that you will need based on your usage pattern. It increases response times, but it makes your hard drive work more. There should be a service related to this in your services which you can disable.

Defragmentation: If you have disk defragmentation turned on, the computer will work the hard drive when you do not "use" it.

Antivirus: If you have any antivirus or antimalware software running, it scans your files on your hard drive.

All these activities are set up so that they run with lowest priority which means that they run when you are not using your computer. When you use your computer, these activities are put on hold automatically.

[atari]

Great reply! Here are a few more tips.

Volume Shadow Copy - creates backup copy of files for System Restore and Previous Versions. You can disable this feature by disabling the Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) and Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider services.

By the way,

To disable disk defragmentation - run Disk Defragmenter and uncheck the check box for "Run on a schedule (recommended)"

To disable disk indexing - right click a drive, uncheck the check boxes for "Compress this drive to save disk space" and "Index this drive for faster searching"