Why is my storage HDD churning?

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mingwyo

mingwyo

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Jan 7, 2012
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Hi all...I have 2 SSDs (OS/extra) and 1 large storage HDD and when I boot up I can hear the HDD cranking away. First off, why is it thinking so hard when I'm doing nothing (that I can see) that would run off of it and secondly, what do I do to fix this?

In task manager, there is nothing apparent running off of it. I have checked the disk for errors etc. Nothing. I'm at a loss.

Thanks!!
 
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singemagique

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Has the HDD always made the noise you are hearing, or is it louder than normal with a grinding to it? If its the latter, I would backup the drive asap as it's probably throwing errors and going to fail soon. You can run a chkdsk on it and/or SMART test to look for bad sectors and errors. If they come back clean it may just be normal operation for the drive. It's still good practice to do backups.
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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I noticed today that a backup hasn't completed correctly since March - around the time that I switched which SDD housed my O/S.

When attempting to reschedule the backups, it would not allow me to choose my storage HDD as it thinks Windows is booting from there....I am assuming this is related to the HDD working upon start-up.

Come to think of it - this all started around the time of the SDD transfer. Hmm...
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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No - the o/s is definitely on the larger of my 2 ssds. C: is the larger ssd, a: is the smaller, and b: is the storage hdd.
 
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DataMedic

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Hmmm..... a normal amount of accessing is to be expected as Windows still has to read the partition table, and check the filesystem on start up to get the volume name, free space, etc. But it shouldn't continue for more than a few seconds unless another program (such as AV) is accessing it.

You don't have any apps installed on it right?
 
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werberman

werberman

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You've royally screwed Windows - if it thinks the 2TB HDD is where Windows is located, that's almost certainly got to do with it. It could also be that the drive is set not to spin down, though this is not done by default in any version of Windows. Unfortunately the fastest fix for you is almost certainly a re-install of Windows; I can't really think of any other way to help you unless you can post a lot more information.
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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Well that's certainly not what I want to hear. I used Paragon Drive Copy to move the O/S from the smaller SSD to the larger, and it seems to have done a great job after some of the free software I tried failed...
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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So I moved everything off of the storage drive and reformatted it. In doing this I realized/remembered that I put Microsoft Office on the storage drive. After some time of panic as I deleted it ('10), I finally found the link to re-download online.

Long story short, I reinstalled it on C:, however for some reason today Excel began getting a runtime error. I noticed that I had the following folders on my storage drive = B:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

I got Excel to work again, deleted those files, and rebooted. The files came back. Clearly something is not right - perhaps in my registry. How do I get Microsoft to stop adding files automatically to my storage drive? Word, Outlook, et al are not affected. Only Excel.

Thanks again.


(Oh and the churning is gone!)
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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And I found this in options:

Excel_zpsc5fb8457.png


Something ain't right...
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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I deleted the files on the storage folder again. Copied them all back into the C: drive just in case. Changed the destination of the shortcut to C:. Start Excel and sure enough, it reinstalls stuff right back onto the B: drive.

Excel_zps6a95ddf8.png
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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So I've disconnect the HDD and still hear a churning - I guess the noise is coming from the processor instead??

This whole situation has me thinking it may be time to just upgrade my rig all together. A goal when I built it was to piece upgrades together, but I may just start from scratch, while using some of the same parts (i.e. the SSDs, Corsair psu, Vengeance memory). Separate post to come for ideas.
 
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mingwyo

mingwyo

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Fixed everything. Reinstalled Office with the HDD disconnected. Opened the PC and did a solid cleaning with some new cable management. Added some (very nice smelling) dryer sheets to the intakes to prevent heavy pet fur intake. Noise is gone, and it's working well.
 
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