I have a brand new HP a6400f PC with 3GB of memory running Vista Home Premium. I 
have disabled as many services as possible (windows defender, windows firewall, system 
restore, Superfetch, most of the mobility or media center based services etc.) and 
verified the task scheduler hasn't launched anything in the background, but when 
no user programs are running and the computer has been idle for over ten minutes 
I can still hear it briefly move the disk heads every couple of seconds. 

Task manager reports 0% cpu utilization when this occurs. There is no trace of any 
activity in the event monitor once Vista has finished fully booting - my first thought 
had been that there was some sort of logging program running in the background.

This ocurred before I installed a (Comodo) firewall and anti-virus (Avast) program. 
I used Codestuff starter to reduce the number of programs loaded at startup to just 
Intel's ianotif.exe (replaces the ATA drivers to increase performance) and HP's kbdstub.exe 
(keeps track of how many times the system has been recovered - I'd remove it except 
that supposedly prevents the keyboard manager from recognizing its a HP). 

The computer will go into sleep mode on its own, and when that occurs the disk powers 
down.

Unfortunately Sysinternals's FileMon doesn't run under Vista, and I can't isolate 
the process that is writing to a file using Process Explorer (I can see what files 
are open but it has no information about which ones are being written to).

Suggestions? If I could figure out what file is being written to I could probably 
figure out whats causing it. 

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Don't have an answer, just wondering why you seem so concerned about it....

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There is number of things that could be going on. Check your Defrag settings. In Vista it will be doing a continuous defragmentation by default unless you turn it off. What Anti-Virus are you using I had Kasperski and it had a similar effect on Vista along with many other bad things? Are all of your updates in order (with the exception of driver updates)? Open the update window and view your installed updates to see that they are successful and not failed. This could take some work to correct. Do you have SP1 installed yet? If SP1 was successful then the updates should be corrected. That will keep you busy for a while!

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Dan Sarandrea:

Because I like to remain in control of my computer, and if there is any chance (however 
remote/ridiculous) of this being a hardware error I want to identify that within 
the first 30 days.

Charlie Hadden:

I'm already using SP1 (it was pre-installed) and have installed all of the latest 
windows updates except for windows defender. I'm using Avast anti-virus with just 
the standard and web shield providers. Neither scans the disk drive in the background. 
This problem occurred before I installed it.

I disabled the task scheduler from running defrag every wed at 1am. My impression 
is that some 3rd party disk defrag tools such as Diskkeeper will run automaticaly 
when the computer is idle, but the one included in Vista doesn't - it relies upon 
the task scheduler to run it automatically. 

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I'm starting to think this is might be a hardware problem since I installed a beta 
of Ubuntu 8.10 on another partition and it occurs with it too, though the symptoms 
are slightly different. 

I'm currently running DiskCheckup (under Vista) to monitor the S.M.A.R.T data but 
it seems to report everything is okay.

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It might be the HDD - two things to do in case it is:

1. Make sure you have backed up your precious data !

2. Identify the HDD manufacturer/model and download/run their own diagnostic tools 
(they usually have them available at their support website). This will give you the 
most meaningful prognosis.

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Good idea about the diagnostic. I booted Seagates Seatools CD. It passed the short 
test. I also used the acoustic test to temporarily power down the disk so that I 
could verify the sound I heard was from the hard disk and not something else occasionally 
clicking. Its the disk. 

This makes the third operating system (DOS) that it occurs with so I guess I either 
do nothing and hope that the noise isn't a early warning of future hardware problems, 
or I return the PC.

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The only other common factor I can see is the BIOS, but I cannot easily see what 
it might be doing "regularly".

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I wanted to make sure that you have it completely on manual, as in Vista it can run continuous, LITTERALLY. And I know of one other (not familiar with your brand running on Vista) anti-Virus that is constantly chunking away. In that it is still in warranty be careful not to do the obvious uncool things that will hurt that. I had the problem and really don't know where in the process that I lost it. People will tell you it is superfetch and a lot of other stuff, but I have absolutely everything turned ON in my system with the exception of the continual defrag and the anti-virus mentioned and things got fixed. You might want to get your machine to a place where you are confident you have no active viruses, disconnect yourself form any outside sources to the internet, and shut down the Avast for a short time. Be aware that AV's load multiple modules on startup.

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Assuming this is a store-bought HP, go back to the store and observe the display 
model.

My expectation is that it is doing exactly what yours is doing.

If so, then it's logical to assume that this behavior is inherent in the design of 
the system as a whole or one of its components.

Who knows, it could have something to do with the particular model of chipset on 
the mobo, or something to do with the Native Command Queueing logic of the SATA disk 
installed.

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Dan Sarandrea:

Unfortunately that model isn't on display in any of the local stores. I listened 
to a similar model (differences should only have been the motherboard and CPU) but 
the noise level in the store was too high for me to tell if it did the same thing 
while idling. 

Charlie Hadden:

I get the same disk activity whether I'm running Vista, the beta of Ubuntu 8.10, 
or DOS (Seagate SeaTools diagnostic CD). 

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I get the disk activity even when I'm in the BIOS setup. That means its a hardware 
problem of some type. 

Thanks for trying to help. I'm going to exchange the PC.

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Why not send an email to the tech support of the hard disk drve manufacturer, describing 
your issue, and ask them to forward it to the level of support or engineering that 
would have the knowledge and/or experience to tell you if this is a flaw or if this 
is characteristic.

It would certainly be ironic if the replacement did the same thing because it is, 
uh, supposed to act that way.

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I chatted with HP support (apparently in India) who confirmed that the disk should 
not be accessed while in the BIOS setup, and that either the BIOS needs to be updated 
(no update was available) or there is a hardware problem. 

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I have the same problem. I had a disk failure and HP replaced the HD. The original HD did not do this but the new one does. The new one is a different brand and I wonder if it is brand specific.

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I originally had a Seagate HD. I exchanged the unit for a new one, which has a Hiatchi. That solved the problem. I also noticed that some of the default BIOS settings were different, and there appeared to be another choice in the boot order menu that I don't remember the first unit had. So, its possible the problem was really solved by a BIOS upgrade, even though when I chatted with HP the support tech. claimed I had the latest BIOS.

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