hard drive runs continuously

[CHARLES]

I have a compaq presario P3. I have never noticed it before but the hard drive continuously runs, or perhaps ticks is the word. I have closed all the programs that Alt Ctrl Del opens except explorer and systray but the thing still runs.
suggestions?

[zipulrich]

Run Scandisk, then Defrag.

Once you've ruled out a trojan (you can use Tauscan (http://www.agnitum.com/) to check), the most likely culprit is your swap-file.

[CHARLES]

Apparently it is not a trojan horse. How do I set the swap file?

[zipulrich]

Right-click 'My Computer', click 'Properties', go to 'Performance' tab, click the 'Virtual Memory' button near the bottom. What's it say?

[CHARLES]

let me specify memory
min 254
max 17666

[zipulrich]

How much RAM ya got?

While you type back the answer, go back to virtual memory and choose to let Windows manage it. Reboot, and see (or hear) what happens.

We'll get it :)

[CHARLES]

256mg

Did the windows thing and yep that seemed to help. The hd did not run as long. thanks for the help.

[zipulrich]

:)