Stop "Analyzing Disks" in Vista Home Premium

[hx009]

Ok, I searched the forums for "analyzing disks" (with 0 results) before posting this, so please just direct me to the thread if this is a repost. I've got a new dual hard drive laptop with Vista Home Premium on it, and it drives me INSANE practically every other time the thing boots. I find the hard drive activity LED grinding away, sucking down my battery life... well after all my startup programs have all loaded. Every single time I see this behavior, I check the control panel -> Defragment Hard Drives, and sure enough it's "Analyzing Disks...". The analyze runs a solid 1-2 minutes grinding 100% on both my hard drives. On a laptop that is murder on the battery.
I've disabled/unchecked the "Run on a schedule", and even went so far as to install a trial of Diskeeper, thinking maybe those clever guys disabled Windows defragmenter since Diskeeper basically takes over defragmentation duty... with no luck. Somebody please tell me there's a way to stop this OS from "Analyzing Disks" practically every other boot.

If it matters, the laptop has dual 120GB 5400RPM drives in it.

p.s. I also found it interesting that even though Diskeeper is supposedly defragging silently in the background at all times, whenver Vista finishes analysis it reports "your drive performance can be improved".

 

[Smilin]

Did you install Vista yourself (default settings) or did it come on a computer you purchased (oem settings)?

There is no control panel -> defragment hard drives. Classic mode doesn't show this and Control Panel home buries it in a different location. When you open it it will present you with options to run it now or run it on a schedule. Even if already running it will never say "Analyzing Disks". Also I've never seen it mention your drive performance could be improved. It just does it.

Are you *sure* you're talking about Vista's disk defragmenter?

The built in Vista disk defragmenter does not run when your computer is on battery. To double check go to task scheduler (just type schedule in the start menu). In the tree on the left find defrag and look at the conditions tab. Note that it will not defrag if:

Your computer is not idle
Ceases to be idle
Your computer is on battery
Your computer goes on battery.

Unless you or your OEM have monkeyed with these settings something else is likely happening. I think it's likely that Vista defrag was not the cause of your issue, you installed diskkeeper thinking it was, and now that's the real issue.

 

[hx009]

I realize this situation may be frustrating to you, however Smilin was trying to help you resolve this. Your response to his questions and information was beyond rude, if you continue to respond like that to other posters you can plan on posting elsewhere for awhile.
Anandtech Moderator - bsobel

 

[nerp]

I didn't get any condescening tones from Smilin's message. Just insecurity from your reply as well as threats of violence.

 

[hx009]

Originally posted by: nerp
I didn't get any condescening tones from Smilin's message. Just insecurity from your reply as well as threats of violence.

Thanks for the contribution.

 

[bsobel]

The only thing I "messed with" was disabling the schedule defrag due to the machine being a laptop.

Why did you disable the scheduled defrag? Have you tried renabling it to see if your problem goes away? The scheduled version won't run on DC so you don't have to worry about it killing your battery.

 

[hx009]

Originally posted by: bsobel

The only thing I "messed with" was disabling the schedule defrag due to the machine being a laptop.

Why did you disable the scheduled defrag? Have you tried renabling it to see if your problem goes away? The scheduled version won't run on DC so you don't have to worry about it killing your battery.

Ok let me phrase it another way: I don't want it to run automatically ever. Plugged in or not the last thing I want is the thing to boot up and start hammering the hard drive(s). I want to choose when and where the defragment operation happens... not have Vista decide that the laptop is plugged in during a presentation so it must be alright to defragment as soon as the machine boots.

 

[bsobel]

Ok let me phrase it another way: I don't want it to run automatically ever. Plugged in or not the last thing I want is the thing to boot up and start hammering the hard drive(s). I want to choose when and where the defragment operation happens... not have Vista decide that the laptop is plugged in during a presentation so it must be alright to defragment as soon as the machine boots.

The scheduled defrag is set for 3am on Wednesdays (AFAIK). Sounds like you missed the scheduled window so on next boot the task scheduler is catching up. It still sounds like that to me even tho you've turned off scheduled updates, have you let it get thru at least one defrag completely (the windows one not Diskkeeper) without cancelling? (e.g. let the scheduler think the job its scheduled to do is done, since you turned it off it shouldnt reschedule again).

Also, it does run at a very low priority level (IO and CPU). Its running now (tried to reproduce your issue), its not noticeable at all (albeit, on DC it would be a problem). But your presentation scenario shouldnt result in any noticeable difference to your machines responsiveness (unlike the XP defragger).

Bill

 

[Arkaign]

Man, Bsobel and Smilin are class all the way, Stash as well, to put up with the kind of unjustified hostility that presents itself frequently in this forum.

Fwiw to the OP : if you aren't dependent on any of Vista's new features, it might be a good idea to get a copy of XP for that notebook. It will run ridiculously well, and you won't have to worry about those performance/maintenance functions running at possibly inopportune times. Of course, it would be a good idea to follow all of the proposed troubleshooting steps postulated by the resident Vista gurus before you take that drastic step. But if nothing else fixes you, that sure will.

 

[stash]

You might want to use the Resource Monitor in task manager to see what is hitting your disk.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: hx009

Originally posted by: bsobel

The only thing I "messed with" was disabling the schedule defrag due to the machine being a laptop.

Why did you disable the scheduled defrag? Have you tried renabling it to see if your problem goes away? The scheduled version won't run on DC so you don't have to worry about it killing your battery.

Ok let me phrase it another way: I don't want it to run automatically ever. Plugged in or not the last thing I want is the thing to boot up and start hammering the hard drive(s). I want to choose when and where the defragment operation happens... not have Vista decide that the laptop is plugged in during a presentation so it must be alright to defragment as soon as the machine boots.

The default scheduled defrag settings if left untouched will not do this.

Idle detection is part of the scheduled task. See my original post for how to verify these settings. Your machine must be idle for defrag to start and it will immediately stop if defrag if the computer ceases to become idle.

If you have indeed canceled the built-in scheduled task for defrag then the odd hdd activity symptoms you are seeing are being caused by something else. Diskkeeper? Follow Stash's suggestion to begin tracking it down.

If you want to choose when and where defrag happens be sure you don't forget to run it. I'd really encourage you to use the default settings. It is very carefully designed to be effective while not to being intrusive.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: hx009

Originally posted by: bsobel

The only thing I "messed with" was disabling the schedule defrag due to the machine being a laptop.

Why did you disable the scheduled defrag? Have you tried renabling it to see if your problem goes away? The scheduled version won't run on DC so you don't have to worry about it killing your battery.

Ok let me phrase it another way: I don't want it to run automatically ever. Plugged in or not the last thing I want is the thing to boot up and start hammering the hard drive(s). I want to choose when and where the defragment operation happens... not have Vista decide that the laptop is plugged in during a presentation so it must be alright to defragment as soon as the machine boots.

The default scheduled defrag settings if left untouched will not do this.

Idle detection is part of the scheduled task. See my original post for how to verify these settings. Your machine must be idle for defrag to start and it will immediately stop if defrag if the computer ceases to become idle.

If you have indeed canceled the built-in scheduled task for defrag then the odd hdd activity symptoms you are seeing are being caused by something else. Diskkeeper? Follow Stash's suggestion to begin tracking it down.

If you want to choose when and where defrag happens be sure you don't forget to run it. I'd really encourage you to use the default settings. It is very carefully designed to be effective while not to being intrusive.

^^^ Truth!

Fwiw, another approach might be to back your docs/data up, do a format & fresh install, and after updating/patching it, leave it alone for the most part (other than cosmetic touches). I've found Vista to be somewhat unforgiving to certain attempts to glean additional performance through typical tuning that helps XP.

 

[hx009]

Originally posted by: stash
You might want to use the Resource Monitor in task manager to see what is hitting your disk.

I opened the Resource Monitor up and see the blue line "Highest Active Time" pegged at ~100% for the first 1-3 minutes the system is booted. What should I sort the Disk items by to determine the culprit? Read? Write? Response Time? One item I did note is that some Office 2007 related stuff was in the list while the drive was being drilled that was not there once the disk beating had stopped.

 

[Smilin]

OK so disk defragging just after boot is abnormal.

This is different. There are all sorts of tasks that run in the few minutes just after boot and it's perfectly normal. Most of it involves pre-fetching of some sort or another. I wouldn't even bother looking at resource monitor for the first couple minutes after boot. If disk activity keeps going after say 5min then yes, take a peek to see what's happening.

Your laptop battery should be able to survive moving a 2.5" head back and forth for a couple minutes (the disk would be spinning even if Idle). If it can't then there are worse problems going on!

 

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by: Smilin
OK so disk defragging just after boot is abnormal.

This is different. There are all sorts of tasks that run in the few minutes just after boot and it's perfectly normal. Most of it involves pre-fetching of some sort or another. I wouldn't even bother looking at resource monitor for the first couple minutes after boot. If disk activity keeps going after say 5min then yes, take a peek to see what's happening.

Your laptop battery should be able to survive moving a 2.5" head back and forth for a couple minutes (the disk would be spinning even if Idle). If it can't then there are worse problems going on!

Exactly. It'll be doing things, like, say, precaching things for superfetch. Come to think of it, with a 2.5" drive that may or may not be 5400RPM, that's probably what it's doing. I know that's what it's doing on my laptop with Vista, anyways.

To the OP: let it boot. Wait 5 minutes. If it isn't doing anything, you're fine.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, for some of us whom are just following along with this thead - there was no solution that completely disables automatic disk defragmentation under Vista?

I tend not to defrag my disks, so being able to disable the auto-defrag thing would be useful. I organize my storage into partitions, some of which become fragmented often, and others that simply do not fragment (non-updated stuff). So auto-defragmentation is of limited utility to me.

 

[nerp]

Not sure if it would have limited utility for you, larry. It's not as if Vista chokes while trying to defrag a partition that doesn't need defragging. It would just do what it could if it even needed to. If not, it would move on. With auto defrag, your fragged partitions would eventually get defragged and your generally clean partitions would stay that way and the whole time, you shouldn't notice a thing or see any loss in performace. The beauty of Vista defrag is that it doesn't sit there trying to do a full "perfect" defrag every time, which results in endless moving of files. Delete a 1K block at the beginning of the drive and many third party defraggers will spend the next two hours moving every piece of data over in 1K increments. That's wasteful and does NOTHING for performace. Vista, rightly, doesn't do this crap unless you specifically tell it to.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
So, for some of us whom are just following along with this thead - there was no solution that completely disables automatic disk defragmentation under Vista?

I tend not to defrag my disks, so being able to disable the auto-defrag thing would be useful. I organize my storage into partitions, some of which become fragmented often, and others that simply do not fragment (non-updated stuff). So auto-defragmentation is of limited utility to me.

I believe disabling the automatic task should do it for you, but as nerp said there really is no reason to mess with it.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
So, for some of us whom are just following along with this thead - there was no solution that completely disables automatic disk defragmentation under Vista?

I tend not to defrag my disks, so being able to disable the auto-defrag thing would be useful. I organize my storage into partitions, some of which become fragmented often, and others that simply do not fragment (non-updated stuff). So auto-defragmentation is of limited utility to me.

I believe disabling the automatic task should do it for you, but as nerp said there really is no reason to mess with it.

1337-ness?