How to stop by harddrive from running after wakeup?

March 5, 2012 8:56 AM

What's up with my Mac? Hard drive runs for several minutes after waking.

Every time I wake up my iMac I can hear the hard drive kick in and run for a couple of minutes. It apparently takes up most of the attention of the computer, as trying to do anything like open a web page gives you the beach ball until the drive stops.

I'd thought this was a dying drive problem, so months ago I upgraded to a new HD. The problem seemed to go away for a while but is now back.

I thought it might be browser-related, but Safari and Firefox both hang while the drive is running.

It's not the computer trying to archive.

Help?

posted by papercake to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Do you use TimeMachine? It could be that program backing up files upon waking. You can change its settings.
posted by perhapses at 9:14 AM on March 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Antivirus program?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:15 AM on March 5, 2012

Go to the Utilities folder, and open the Disk Utility app. Run the Verify Disk check, and if all checks out there, run the Repair Disk Permissions check.

Maybe one of those two tools will fix whatever your problem is.
posted by dfriedman at 9:19 AM on March 5, 2012

You can also run the program Activity Monitor from your Utilities folder and see what application is going nuts. For example, you might see "mds" or "mdworker" chugging away, and a search for those apps online will show you that they're part of Spotlight indexing your hard drive.
posted by bcwinters at 9:22 AM on March 5, 2012 [1 favorite]