hard drive constantly accessed

[bartolomo]

I just put this system together (98se) and the hd is constantly being accessed; every couple seconds the light flashes. It does it even while nothing is running. I recall this may have something to do with swap files, but I don't remember what it is. Anyone know? Thanks.

[$1500-P4 gamer]

How much ram ya got and how many apps are open at boot. This happens often when the system is outta ram and has to swap files alot to the hdd in oder to run through VM. Sounds like mem is all used up. Also hit start>settings>control panel>system> performance...how much system resources are left? You can try setting your vm to max and min the same also!:t

[bartolomo]

ram is 256 resources: 80% free--so I don't think that's it. Should be plenty of memory. System runs fine, otherwise.

[rmanet]

geez, I woulda thought for sure it was the ram and the swap file like P4 Gamer said

try what he says- its wierd that you have so much ram and it's still looking like it's using the drive for virtual memory - set it to 512 (min - max) under systems/performance - then run defrag

sometimes I even take the VM setting down to equal to installed ram - just once - run defrag - then restore VM to either the default or 2 1/2 time installed RAM

if that doesn't help - you have any background apps running, virus scan, auto save?

boot the machine and don't open any apps - if it still happens it's got to be some background app - if you're using word or something else (virus scan, whatever) might be accessing the drive for autosave or some other reason?

[Eric Legge]

For anyone who is unaware of this, the IDE light applies to any IDE drive activity, including IDE CD/DVD drives.

Have you the DMA option enabled for that drive under the Device Manager?

If you haven't that could be why there is so much pagefiling.

Also, the drive might be working in MSDOS Compatibility Mode, so check under the Performance tab of System Properties.

Read this excellent article - Windows 98 & WinME Memory Management - here -

http://aumha.org/articles.htm

Eric,
http://www.legge40.freeserve.co.uk/BuyerBeware.htm

[bartolomo]

This may be the answer:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q138598

Has to do with the drive checking the CD rom for a disk.

[AllGamer]

that's only PART of the answer

the other thing that affect it is your SWAP FILE :t