Hard drive getting a constant thrashing...

manic111 · 14 Nov 2008 at 02:11

My hard drive is constantly in use (using vista home premium 32bit, with a Seagate barracuda 7200.10 HDD). I am assuming that this is the Superfetch function, and do not want to turn it off as I use the search feature quite a lot. However, I have had this PC for over a year now (I know, probably should have done something about this sooner!) and it's still going at it! I've tried rebuilding the index to no avail.

Has anyone got any ideas? I had heard that upgrading to SP1 could help, which I haven't done yet. For some reason my PC has not upgraded automatically, and I didn't want to risk doing it manually, but would be happy to if it would stop this incessant whirring!

EDIT: In fact, I can't even find out how to upgrade to SP1...on the Windows Update site it directs me to the update section of Control Panel, but it doesn't find any updates to SP1 there...

EDIT2: Just installed an optional, small, insignificant update and it's now allowing me to install SP1. Off to bed now but will do it tomorrow and hope it fixes it!

Aod · 14 Nov 2008 at 05:27

nobody should be running Vista without SP1. vista was TERRIBLE without it, it fixed so many things.

Ratbag · 14 Nov 2008 at 11:34

Yes, SP1 will doubtless resolve your woes.

Incidentally, you deserve a medal for putting up with vista pre-SP1 for a whole year. Well done!

manic111 · 14 Nov 2008 at 12:45

lol! Mainly because from the looks of things the download through the MS website is over 400mb, while through Windows Update it's under 200!

The_Abyss · 14 Nov 2008 at 14:00

If you'd have kept Vista up to date normally pre-SP1, then SP1 would not be a 400mb download, instead more like 60bmb.

dirtydog · 14 Nov 2008 at 14:03

The_Abyss said:
If you'd have kept Vista up to date normally pre-SP1, then SP1 would not be a 400mb download, instead more like 60bmb.

He is referring to the redistributable installation package, I presume. (Useful for those of us with a copy of the original Vista to update it quickly without going online first.)

manic111 · 14 Nov 2008 at 16:23

Seems to be all sorted, SP1 has stopped my HDD being run ragged, and also cut down my RAM usage by almost 10%. Yay!!!

Mattus · 14 Nov 2008 at 16:37

Glad it's sorted! But just to clear up, Superfetch and search indexing are two different things. Superfetch automatically loads your most recently used programs into RAM you're not using, so they start more quickly. Vista will always do this, unless you turn it off.

Dolph · 14 Nov 2008 at 16:50

SP1 and a USB Key for readyboost (to prevent it having to load programs each time you turn on) dramatically reduces disk thrashing.

C64 · 14 Nov 2008 at 21:26

I didn't notice things loading any faster on vista than xp has to be said.