New Total Protection Security Center 12.8 causing HD issues in XP?

[jcpa]

Over the course of the last month, much has been revealed.  I ran chkdsk, no problems.  I also replaced my hard drive , and while its better (fresh meat?), it is still skipping at shutdown and at startup.  I have another xp desktop that is not so heavily used that has also been updated by McAfee.  Guess what?  Hard drive there has also become noisy at startup and shutdown. 

This week, due to mcshield.exe causing an unknown software exception on my main rig, I completely uninstalled McAfee including using the mcpr tool, and also ran Microsoft's Safety Scanner for some outside verification on my virus-free state.  While McAfee was completely uninstalled, I restarted and did complete shutdown/starts at least 5 times.  Through all of them, my hard drive was quiet as a mouse.  I then reinstalled McAfee.  Shut down, restart. Hard drive skips!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I can't possibly be the only one with this issue, considering another machine of mine, which is plain vanilla, is doing the same thing.  I will be updating and/or decommissioning my XP machines over the next few months, but my hardware has to be in working order by then.  This has already been costly in components and labor.  How can this issue be elevated?

[exbrit]

I don't have XP any more to compare but in Vista, 7 and 8.1 I've noticed startup takes a little while longer while the system gets its preliminiary scan but no particularly unusual hard drive activity that I can detect.  There is a feature being introduced to skip this initial scan, it appeared briefly on one version we spotted and then vanished again, obviously being tested,   Not sure if it will help in this case.

I can only assume that XP reacts slightly differently to a startup scan then other OS's.

If you want to start a new case with Technical Support it may be of benefit to you.

From my own experience I do know that one can save a lot of the initial scan activity by never storing emails in ones Inbox but create sub-folders to store them instead.   That's one major step removed.

[Peacekeeper]

I have XP with 12.8 installed but have not booted it recently. I will run some tests later on today and report back. as Far as I know you are the only 1 with this and the fact that 2 pCs 1 with a new drive installed does this is strange.

Call support I assume after talking to them you may need to ask to escalate your issue.

[Peacekeeper]

Ok booted no noise at all Mcafee then updated to latest version available for XP and no noise. Vulnerability scanner found two updates and did those. Shut down and rebooted three times quiet as a mouse.

When it was making the noises did you see any cpu usage by programs?

Xp home

cpu e6600

2gb matched ram ddr2 800

75gb Western Digital velociraptor 12 mths old

Can you post your specs as well please and call support. Get the SR job number and post it here and I will discuss this with the high level techs on Monday PM US time.

[exbrit]

Just a thought here, defragging causes disk noise, by nature, so do you have auto-defragging set up?   Also some brands of disk make a lot of noise anyway, or so I've noticed but wont mention brand names.

Mind I'm not trying to discount that it could be McAfee that is to blame either.

Message was edited by: Ex_Brit on 07/12/13 9:08:15 EST AM

[Hayton]

I missed this thread when it was new, so apologies. On first read-through I thought this was about the feared Click of Death, but it appears to be less serious than that. As I have an XP machine which recently had an upgrade to 12.8 I might be able to offer some new advice.

First, I had initial problems installing 12.8 on my XP machine but after a couple of reboots it's been mostly trouble-free except for during McAfee updates. I too have noticed that at startup and shutdown there are grinding noises but this I am sure is something to do with the A: drive. That never used to happen but if it's only the floppy disk drive it doesn't bother me.

Second, Piriform's Speccy could be a useful diagnostic tool here. It displays just about everything relevant to the installed hardware and software that you could need for troubleshooting. If the poster hasn't got it installed already it should be there as part of the diagnostic toolkit. And it's free (ignore the Buy Now option).

If the poster has a problem with the C: drive and is running on a PC with Intel architecture there is an Intel utility which might help. This utility has Help documentation which specifically refers to disk noise, and the utility has a number of modifiable parameters, one of which is intended to reduce disk noise.

(1) Decreasing the device's noise level is accomplished by decreasing seek rates, which may cause a slight performance degradation

The utility will only work on a PC with certain specified Intel components (it was a product of its time, and won't work on newer machines).

I've had this utility running on my XP machine without any problems for some time, and when I installed it the disk performance improved noticeably.

If the poster wants to download it, he can get it from the Intel website - but there are a several versions for different chipsets, so finding the right one can take some time.

Edit - The name? It's the Intel Application Accelerator.

Message was edited by: Hayton on 07/12/13 18:17:14 GMT

[Peacekeeper]

Actually Hayton that reminded me that I also noticed a while back seeking noises in my floppy when PC starting. Was not only XP but win 7. I got so annoyed I disabled my floppy and all quiet and it was at boot usure re shutdown. Was not sure it was Mcafee but probably was and I haven't used a floppy in a couple of years so disabling not a big deal.Jcpa do you have a floppy on that PC?

[jcpa]

Ah Hayton, where've you been all my life? Or at least for the last few weeks of it?  When this first started, my first thought/hope was that it was one of my DVD drives (the nature of the sound is more like a fast skip against that sort of surface, and nothing like the noises my a: drive used to make, especially since there's no disk in there).  The DVD drives are at the top of my tower while the hard drive is closer to the bottom.  The a: drive sits closer to the hard drive.  I could tell it was not the DVD drives.  And, I was also getting noises at systems scans (still could be a: drive I suppose), but also constant ominous and unusual noises the whole time during disk/parition backup through other software, which is targeted at the hard drive and does not involve the a: drive at all.  I quite possibly had both McAfee and drive problems at the same time (disasters usually involve a comedy of errors).  But now, in the post-hard drive replacement "better" state and since your post, I have been listening very carefully and am 95% sure it is now just the a: drive.  Due to the snow storm messing things up around here, I won't have time to mess with the bios to disable the a: drive until at least later this week.  I need to look at doing that a little more closely before I do it since the a: is part of the bios boot sequence, and I'm not sure the process is as simple as just disabling the drive. 

fyi, xp pro, pentium d 3 ghz, 4g ram, 500g hard drive 2 wks old, no auto defragging, noise is at shutdown and startup so unable to check cpu usage at those times, sr 1375068927, and not sure related but am still getting occasional errors at startup (e.g., The instruction at "0x00000000" referenced memory at "0x00000000". The memory could not be "written". in my post McAfee reinstall world, this time from McSvHost.exe).  More than a little frustrated with McAfee at this point.

[Peacekeeper]

Yes thanks Peter I disabled my floppies so long ago that I forgot about the issue. As well as disabling in the bios I disconnected the power and data cables.

I will reenable them and if confirmed as still an isue will report it.

In real time scanning what setting is the Check removable drive  setting set at?

Message was edited by: Peacekeeper on 10/12/13 7:51:18 AM

[Hayton]

McAfee classes an A: drive (floppy drive) as a Removable Media Drive. The developers probably won't have encountered this since a floppy disk drive is something most of them won't have on their machines.

McAfee attempts to scan any installed Removable Drives at startup in order to counter the AutoRun worm. Hence all the drive head activity.

There is a setting in Security Center --> RealTime Scanning which may help here, although not entirely - see below for my settings, and I still get the startup A:\ drive grinding.