Question : Hard drive keeps polling every two seconds – Win XP Pro?
Howdy folks – I’ll start off by stating I am in the IT biz so I know the rudimentary items to check, but this recent odd behavior has me scratching my head.

As an aside, I’ve scoured the internet for a resolution and have seen myriad suggestions from every hardware and software mfr and keyboard jockey on the planet, but there isn’t a clear-cut resolution. This problem seems to plague all Operating Systems, and all hard drives from all mfrs. I hope the person that has a definitive answer is out there somewhere :)

My system is approaching two years of age. A few specs:
MSI mainboard w/nVidia chipset
AMD Athlon dual core CPU
SATA drives

Here’s the kicker – it works flawlessly, always has, but I *recently* swapped out my WD 160GB SATA boot drive for a new Hitachi DeskStar 750GB SATA unit. Since that time, my new hard drive polls every two seconds, without fail. I have multiple logins on my XP Pro OS, and no matter which login I use, once the PC “settles down” after login, the never-ending polling with two-second intervals begins. Days later, it’s still polling every two seconds. Light flash, accompanied with a subdued “whrrrrk” sound. Sounds like no biggie, you say, but to me and the others out there – it’s beyond irritating when you’re trying to focus on the work you’re doing. Sorta like your little brother with his finger one inch from your eye saying “I’m not touching you…I’m not touching you…I’m not touching you” :P I don’t have a little brother, but I’ve heard that’s quite annoying, heh.

I have no performance issues at all – it’s super speedy. The Event Viewer log shows nothing particularly glaring or out of sorts HOWEVER I did notice that the SECURITY section is empty – no “keys” with successful audits – nothing. O.o

I have no viruses/trojans/malware/adware/spyware/viruses, et al. It has exhibited this behavior since the OS was installed fresh, after the first boot. Microsoft’s knowledge base didn’t turn up anything concrete either, at least not that I could find.

I have found a single trick that stop this behavior, but I want to know what causes it to happen in the first place so I can rectify the problem: If I bring up Task Manager, click Processes, right-click EXPLORER.EXE [aka: Windows Explorer, aka: the desktop] and shut it down, the phenomenon stops. The I start a New Task, type EXPLORER and hit Enter, I get my desktop back, but the polling never resumes. SUCCESS!

Now if I could just figure out what’s triggering the endless polling in the first place…

Thanks guys!
Dan
pc security audit

Best answer:

Answer by Desslok
Hey man,

so my favorite tool to track down i/o thieving processes in windows is “process explorer” http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

just set up the i/o columns in the main window and sort if necessary

when the light flashes it should show up on process explorer and you can track down the process responsible

cheers