Restarting & HDD shutting down

[Vixor]

Hello!

I have a problem with my hard drive.

Whenever I choose to restart my computer: first I get an error-like message sound in the background (no message shows up, maybe it's not related to my problem), then it keeps shutting down, but when it's just about finished - my hard drive goes power off, and then starts back on and the booting sequence begins.

This is pretty anoying, as far as I know, there is no reason for my hard drive to go to a full stop when doing a restart - this reduces the life time of my hardware (disk drive).

Another thing is when I turn off the computer - it seems to me that the disk drive is makeing a different noise when it powers down than it used to - like it would be interrupted while writing/reading - but I'm not too sure about that.

I must say it doesn't always happen, especialy if I manualy turn off Norton Antivirus scanner and/or Norton Security - but that doesn't always do the trick, and is very inconvinient.

Otherwise my sytem seems fully stable, I have the latest WindowsXP updates, drivers and software installed.
My setup is:
- disk drive: 60GB IBM
- main board: intel 850MV (BIOS updated, intel Application Accelerator and Active Monitor installed)
- WindowsXP SP1 and latest critical updates

The way I see it - the system sends the "final terminate signal" before it writes/reads everything from the hard drive - maybe the system doesn't manage to shut down all the processes? That doesn't cause any real damage to my system - no error messages appear and I basicly could live with that - but it is anoying and I know it wasn't like that before.

Any help/advise needed, thx.

 

[error_911]

Well lets see here... how much ram do you have for starters... And also, it might just be a bug (don't you love that technical term). Personally, I'd just re-format (since everyone's system needs a good wipe clean every now and then anyways - it can't hurt). The fact that Norton affects this a little bit might have to do with how many programs are open when you're shutting down.. how many?

Ahhh! It's 2003 and wait, whats this!? My computer didn't blow up! ... Well damn, there goes my new Athlon @ 333FSB and my inssurance claim... heheheh

 

[Vixor]

Heh, yes, in fact I reformated just less than a month ago because of this and other things. And now I'm back to square one

The problem is that just before my last reformatting I installed/upgraded a lot of software/drivers that may have something to do with this - and now it's very hard for me to determine what I shouldn't have installed: is it the BIOS upgrade, the switch from intel Ultra ATA storage driver to Application Accelerator, the new XP compatible Active Monitor, some benchmarking software, Norton updates or what??

The thing is I installed all the latest drivers right after reformatting - without upgrading from older versions, all at once and now I don't have a clue what is wrong here.

I heard there are problems with the intel App. Acc. on certain mother boards, so I may try uninstalling that. But then what if I run into other trouble - reformatting again - no thanks it all takes too long .

Well ok, I'll start by browsing intel's support sites...

 

[error_911]

well, the only way to go about it otherwise is to systematically uninstall and then re-install your drivers and software, to see which one is creating the problem... otherwise, if you can live with it then don't even bother if you don't feel like it.

Ahhh! It's 2003 and wait, whats this!? My computer didn't blow up! ... Well damn, there goes my new Athlon @ 333FSB and my inssurance claim... heheheh