Railfan Technology > WTF monents with hardrives? Data-theft?

I've had this happen before and just noted it a few minutes ago.

I "wake up" my computer, pop on line and - what's this? why is
my hard drive spinning? This time, the external. I go to Task
Manager to see what's running or taking up resources but before
I can fully dig in and try to find the culprit, if even possible,
I decide instead to restart the computer.

Odd - I was not able to "eject" the drive. Seems at another
point, I was able to eject not just CF cards, but the MyBooks as
well. I'll have to re-check my settings. If I recall, they are
set to safely pull the plug with no need to eject, but I am still
hesitant to do so.

I do not believe it is my Kaspersky Anti-Virus, nor is my drive
set to defrag on any schedule.

What's going on?

What do you do when your hard drive starts spinning up and making
read /write noises without reason?

/Mitch

Mgoldman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've had this happen before and just noted it a
> few minutes ago.
>
> I "wake up" my computer, pop on line and - what's
> this? why is
> my hard drive spinning? This time, the external.
> I go to Task
> Manager to see what's running or taking up
> resources but before
> I can fully dig in and try to find the culprit, if
> even possible,
> I decide instead to restart the computer.
>
> Odd - I was not able to "eject" the drive. Seems
> at another
> point, I was able to eject not just CF cards, but
> the MyBooks as
> well. I'll have to re-check my settings. If I
> recall, they are
> set to safely pull the plug with no need to eject,
> but I am still
> hesitant to do so.
>
> I do not believe it is my Kaspersky Anti-Virus,
> nor is my drive
> set to defrag on any schedule.
>
> What's going on?
>
> What do you do when your hard drive starts
> spinning up and making
> read /write noises without reason?
>
> /Mitch

Mitch, I believe that eject is mostly a legacy. This dates from the fact that computers would have delayed writes.
ie you would write to your device and the computer would do it when it had process time, ie background process. On a Unix system people would actually mount devices, to tell the computer it is there. When they wrote to a device the OS would queue that device.

I am not saying don't eject, I just haven't done it in years so I don't think it is a problem. Of course you don't want to pull the cord while it is backing up file or immediately after.. Probably someone will object but that is my take.

As far as the HD spinning when you start up, mine does that. When it goes into sleep mode it is in semi shutdown.
Best guess when it starts up it "queries" all the devices which it does normally. It does this as part of normal operation.

Devices are listed as connected so the operating system goes out and say "Are you there, are you ready, what is your status.". similar to when you start your car now and all the various sensors, computers are queried."

bob jordan

I'd say eject when you have the option - there is a setting
somewhere, I can't recall where now, that gives you the option.
One mode is "safe" and will allow you to just pull the cord while
another requires you to eject the drive in order to prevent
corrupted files. I believe I have my externals (via USB ports
set up for the safe mode (as opposed to the internal drives).

As for the read /write sounds - I've noticed that sound - the
drive in use - even after start up. It can be after I'm done
using the drive or seemingly, like last night, for no reason
at all a good 20 minutes after "waking up" the computer yet
never needing access to the drive for anything (no editing,
no defragging, nor any auto back up nor a scheduled virus scan
(that I know of).

I feel as if it's being accessed by someone online - someone
or some program reading, downloading or uploading to it. It's
scary. I don't want my files copied nor do I want my backup
drive infected with malicious files.

/Mitch

Mgoldman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> I feel as if it's being accessed by someone online
> - someone
> or some program reading, downloading or uploading
> to it. It's
> scary. I don't want my files copied nor do I want
> my backup
> drive infected with malicious files.
>
> /Mitch

If you think someone is connected to your drive, you might look
at the lights on your router to see if there is network activity
when the disk activity is occurring.

You have a firewall, right?

John.

jkh2cpu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you think someone is connected to your drive,
> you might look
> at the lights on your router to see if there is
> network activity
> when the disk activity is occurring.
>
> You have a firewall, right?
>
> John.

I believe Windows 8 has it's own firewall which is
running in addition to Kasperky (Total Internet
Security) which acts as a firewall as well.

The router is not visible where it is installed,
though if I recall, the lights were almost always
flashing. I believe when the drive is humming
for reasons unexplained, the lights are flashing,
as I recall in experiences past.

/Mitch

I think someone can hack your computer if they want to, Like if they want have some really nice photo charter or pan shots.
It can't be that hard, there was the creepy story, no not a Joe story, about the neighbor kid took over the girl down the street
computer and was viewing he computer camera.

I don't think "someone" is meddling with my files, rather some
thing. A software program run a muck, malware, NSA, just someone
who wrote something to peek at, pry or steal content.

Hasn't anyone noticed their hard drives (internal or external)
randomly start spinning (and I'm not simply talking initialize,
but actual read /write sounds with the HD light flickering).

What is this - how do I stop it?

/Mitch

Is file indexing turned on? That could be one reason.

If your computer indexes it will save this work for when there is nothing going on. There is a heck of a lot of thrashing involved in indexing.

I used to be very concerned about the drive running by itself at odd times until I learned this and then started seeing what had gone on before. Generally if I had put a lot of files on there in the last day or so (say a CF card of RAWs) then it will index those for some time.

Don't know if this is your issue or not - but I'd kind of watch for it.