hard drive scanning every few seconds.

[henpecked2]

hi, I'm running xp and have noticed that the hard drive light comes on every five seconds and the drive makes a scanning noise for a second .
this carries on all the time.
have checked if a programme is running in the background but its clear.
any ideas.

[zinnie]

Hi 'henpecked2'...there is a program called 'HD tune' that does a variety of checks on your HDD. It csn be downloaded free. I not sure of the site, but Google will find it

[henpecked2]

thanks Zinnie will have a go at that.

[ACtheTROLL]

Nice little util zin .... I doubt that it's the actual disc that's the problem (from the access every 5 seconds angle at least).

depending on the configuration .... it could just be normal operation - IE polls regularly for changes .... as do a number of services.

However If you've just noticed the behaviour it's possible that the disc is getting noisy .... and could be on the way out (it could also just be the surface you've been using it on.
so zinnies suggestion is sound .... also you need to scan for viruses and other malware (ad-aware, spybot etc)

[Panic Button]

What I thought was hard drive noise was a fan badly choked up with fluff.