# How can confirm that my hard drive is churning?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 29, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085 "2004-03-29T15:19:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085/1 "2004-03-29T15:19:39Z")

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I’ve just finished all my PC maintenance and still think I hear my hard drive whirring constantly. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m hearing things. I don’t see a light anywhere that would tell me whether my HD is being accessed or not. Is there some diagnostic thing I can use on my PC that will tell me if my hard drive is being accessed?

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**Author:** ![Achilles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Achilles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achilles)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085/2 "2004-03-29T15:23:29Z")

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Yeah - if you right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose “Task Manager”. When it opens, chose “Performance” - and there will be a graph of what your HD is doing and how hard it’s working. Also the processes tab should tell you what sys processes are working…

Hope that helps

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**Author:** ![KidCharlemagne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@KidCharlemagne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KidCharlemagne)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085/3 "2004-03-29T16:10:57Z")

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> [@Achilles](#):
>
> Yeah - if you right-click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and choose “Task Manager”. When it opens, chose “Performance” - and there will be a graph of what your HD is doing and how hard it’s working. Also the processes tab should tell you what sys processes are working…
> 
> Hope that helps

Is the pagefile usage the indicator of how hard/if my hard drive is being accessed?

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**Author:** ![Lagged2Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ac8455/32.png) [@Lagged2Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lagged2Death)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-confirm-that-my-hard-drive-is-churning/237085/4 "2004-03-29T16:51:28Z")

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Under Windows 2000 and XP, at least, the Task Manager won’t tell you anything about disk activity, AFAIK.

With those OSes, you can monitor disk activity with the System Monitor applet. (Control Panel -\> Administrative Tools -\> Performance -\> System Monitor.) You’ll have to add the disk activity item (with the “+” button) to the chart yourself. There are about a jillion different metrics this applet will monitor; I suspect you want “% Disk Time” in the “PhysicalDisk” category, but others may also be useful.