Hello

I notice from time to time that while I'm on my Linux box just reading the news, etc, the HD light will suddenly come on and I can hear the HD cooking as if there was some process going on or something was happening on my computer. After a few minutes or even as long as five, the light will go out and it will stop. This happens when I run Red Hat, Mandrake and Debian. It even happens on Windows. Come to think about it, it happens on any computer I use so I guess it's just a normal operation or some "hidden" process going on...perhaps a cron file or server log is being generated or something?. Could someone shed some light on this for me please?. Just kind of freaks me out a little bit wondering whats happening "behind the scenes". Also, is there any way to turn these automatically-run processes off or adjust the time when they should run, etc?.

Thank's again!:-)