First SATA Drive

I just installed a SATA controller and drive into a P4 with an Intel
D845GRG motherboard (if that makes any difference.) The OS is a fresh
installation of XP. Most of the time, I can hear the SATA drive reading
and/or writing. (I started to say ticking, but it's not the same tick
that you hear before a drive is getting ready to die.) The sound reminds
me of the old recalibration routines that drives used to include.

Indexing is turned off. The computer has no viruses and no spyware.
There are no applications running in the background or foreground that
should be accessing the hard drive. Do SATA drives recalibrate?

I ran Seatools on the drive, and it passes all tests.

mcp6453 <mcp6453.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote:

> I just installed a SATA controller and drive into a P4 with an Intel
> D845GRG motherboard (if that makes any difference.) The OS is a fresh
> installation of XP. Most of the time, I can hear the SATA drive reading
> and/or writing. (I started to say ticking, but it's not the
> same tick that you hear before a drive is getting ready to die.) The
> sound reminds me of the old recalibration routines that drives used
> to include.

Is the HD led on at the time or not ?

> Indexing is turned off. The computer has no viruses and no spyware. There
> are no applications running in the background or foreground that should
> be accessing the hard drive.

XP does do quite a bit of drive activity after a clean
install, basically optimising where stuff is on the drive.

> Do SATA drives recalibrate?

All drives recalibrate. Some do it more loudly than others.

> I ran Seatools on the drive, and it passes all tests.

Post the SMART data obtained with Everest.