acrobat pro accessing hard drive for no reason

In version 9 there is only a file called C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Organizer90.

You might try re-creating your preferences as detailed in the following [url=http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403720.php]technical note[/url]:

To re-create the Acrobat Standard, Professional or Pro Extended Preferences folder:
1. Quit Acrobat.
2. In Windows Explorer, go to c:\Documents and Settings\ [User Name] \Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0 folder and move the Preferences folder to another location (for example, C:\Temp).
3. Launch Acrobat.

Note: Custom settings for Collaboration, JavaScripts, Organizer, Security, Stamps, Color Management, Auto Fill, Web Capture and Updater will be affected by using this solution.

Thanks very much for your time and help! I moved the preferences folder to the C:\Temp folder as you suggested. Not sure if it will help because I know computer problems can be difficult to diagnose. If the problem doesn't show up for a week or so I will update this post to let you know. Yesterday it was doing it again. I can take it for about 10 minutes but I can feel myself getting very agitated and I'm sure my blood pressure rises. I don't know why but it really annoys me to have the hard drive spinning a million miles per hour for no apparent reason, esp since I paid so much for this computer. So after about 10 minutes of that, I pressed ctrl, alt, delete, to bring up the task manager, and under the processes tab, I saw that acrobat.exe (I think that was the exact file name) was having a lot of I/O reads so I clicked on the acrobat.exe file and chose to end the process. Then I got a warning message saying something like this could cause problems or instability, etc. I'm usually very careful about heeding all warning messages "just in case", because I need my computer for work, but I was so annoyed I just went ahead and ended the process. As soon as I did that, the constant hard drive buzzing turned into a few occassional short buzzes, then went away.

Thanks but it didn't work. It happened again yesterday and is happening now...and sometimes while it's happening, I notice there are windows that don't seem to respond to my clicks right away, and so I have to wait while they take their time to close. Also I notice even when it isn't happening, sometimes pdf files can take several seconds to close or open, but I don't know if that's normal or not. I don't know if you're familiar with the Procmon.exe program, but you can read about it at
http://ask-leo.com/i_have_constant_disk_activity_and_i_dont_know_why_how_can_i_tell_what_program_is_doing_it.php


Anyway, I ran it for a few seconds, then when I stopped it, I see that under the "operation" column, there's about 2,000 operations, most of them say "WriteFile" and the rest of them say "FlushBuffersFile". Under the "Path" column, every one of them says C:\Documents and Settings\Brad\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Organizer90-journal, and under the "Result" column, they all say "SUCCESS"
Funny thing is, under the Process Name, for each operation, it says iexplore.exe, and last night and today, when I pressed the ctrl, alt, delete combo to see what processes are running, the one that was showing the most activity was iexplore.exe, and even when I closed internet explorer the hard drive was still buzzing and the task manager was still showing that iexplore.exe was running so I clicked on where it said iexplore.exe, and chose to end the process, ...then the buzzing stopped. That gives me a hunch that it might be something to do with the fact that the adobe acrobat is integrated into the internet explorer tool bar, for making pdf copies of web pages.

Anyway, I have no idea what's going on but I hope it doesn't wear out my hard drive. I bought a second computer for a backup but I haven't had the time to turn it on yet. BTW, do you know if I am allowed to install a copy of acrobat 9 pro extended version on my backup computer, or do I need to buy another copy. Hopefully, when I have the time to set up my second computer, I won't have that same problem. Then I can use my backup computer while I reinstall everything on this computer. Thanks again, if you have any more advice.

Unfortunately I'm very familiar with ProcMan for the same reason you mention (excessive hard drive access) on another machine. I've spent hours trying to determine the cause to no avail. It seems to help if I remove temp internet files and other temp files regularly. Also, you can try turning off the auto-updater in Acrobat to see if it helps.

When you re-created your Preferences did the Organizer filename change from C:\Documents and Settings\Brad\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Organizer90-journal to
C:\Documents and Settings\Brad\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Organizer90?

There is a portable or home use clause in the Adobe Acrobat 9 EULA but it is subject to some restrictions. Check it out at [url=http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/Gen_WWCombined-20080205_1329.pdf]Adobe Acrobat 9.0 EULA[/url].

Ok, thanks very much for your help. These Western Digital "black" hard drives I have are noisy. Maybe I should have got the "green" quieter ones. In the C:\Documents and Settings\Brad\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0 folder I see several files. Among them, there is one called Organizer90 and one named Organizer90-journal. By looking at the "date created" column, it looks like the Organizer90-journal file was made when I moved the preferences folder to C:\Temp, as it shows the date 14\08\2009. The Organizer90 file shows a date of 04\07\2008. They were both last modified at the same time, which was about 20 minutes after I moved the preferences folder. Should I delete the oldest one? (the Organizer90 file)....or maybe I should just wait until I have my second computer set up, then try to redo everything on it...so I don't mess it up. Thanks.

Hi. One other thing I recently noticed, is that it seems to happen right after I close the acrobat window. So lately, after I'm finished with a pdf file, instead of closing the main acrobat window, I only close the document, not the acrobat program, leaving the blank acrobat window open. I'll do this for a week or so and then when I do close the program, I'll see if it starts my hard drive to go crazy, then report back in about a week to let you know how it goes.
BTW, just before I made this post, I noticed my empty acrobat program was open, and I closed it....a few seconds later my hard drive started spinning again, which inspired me to make this post...and just now when I bring up the task manager, I see acrobat.exe has a lot of read bytes...ok, I'm going to end acrobat.exe in the task manager now....ok, I ended the acrobat.exe process in task manager, and the drive stopped spinning constantly, although it is still spinning with short breaks between spins....after about a minute of those spins, my hard drive stopped spinning....so definitely something to do with adobe acrobat, I'd say. Could be others have this same problem but don't notice it, as my computer case is close to my head and I have noisy hard drives.

Well to update my last post, today I kept the adobe acrobat window open all day, even after I closed my pdf files. There was no unusual access to my hard drive all day, which was nice....Just now I closed the empty adobe acrobat window to see what would happen, and right away, the hard drive started buzzing away. So I pressed ctrl, alt, delete, to bring up the task manager, and found that the acrobat.exe file was busy reading/writing to the hard drive, so I pressed the button in task manager to end the acrobat.exe process....and the hard drive stopped buzzing...(or clicking, ..whatever you want to call it).....so I'd say that's a great clue as to what's going on, if any of the adobe technical people can use that clue to suggest what might be happening....thanks!

Hi. Just to update, I finally got my backup computer ready...started by formatting the hard drive, installing XP, etc. I made 12 full backups along the way by acronis as I installed programs, to make sure everything was installed perfectly and if I encountered any glitch, no matter how small, I'd restore the previous backup and redo the program or programs I installed since the last backup. Adobe acrobat 9 pro extended was one of the last programs I installed. Happy to say it's working fine, and now if I encounter any computer problems I can restore a previous backup to fix the problem. I made detailed notes along the way so if needed, I can look back thru the notes and figure out what and how I installed the programs for all of the backups. Now when I have time I'll redo the computer that's been giving me problems in the exact same way so it will be ready to go if for some reason this backup computer has a hardware failure or something. I spent over $5,000 each for these computers to hopefully get good quality but it doesn't really matter how much they cost, they are all subject to strange glitches but I think with the backups and notes I made, any problems can now be fixed fairly quickly. I also have all my data including my email folders on a separate internal hard drive so if I restore my drive C I won't lose any data, and once a week I use goodsync to copy all of it to an external drive so I think I finally have everything covered pretty good.

Thanks for spending your time trying to help me.

Thanks for updating your post -- you've spent a lot of time on this issue. I hope your new approach keeps you on solid ground.

I have noticed the exact same thing on my system. I too, have Acrobat Professional Extended version 9.3.1 and have noticed that as soon as I close Acrobat, the hard drive begins to spin like crazy but if I bring up the task manager in Windows XP and kill Acrobat, the drive stops spinning. I know that I can kill Acrobat and the problem goes away, but this really is not a solution. Does anyone have any ideas?

Dave

Hi. I can only add that since I redid my new second computer from the ground up as per my last post, I no longer have that problem...so I never did find out what caused the problem but I was able to fix it by installing Acrobat on a new computer with everything very carefully installed.