Computer is stalling. Hard drive indicator light on solid?

For the past few days, my computer has been acting very strange. When I install a program, or do any kind of multi-tasking, it seems to "stall" -- but NOT freeze -- since the programs running will just "stall" for a minute, then continue. During this time, the Hard Drive indicator light on my laptop is ON SOLID (not blinking like usual) and the hard drive is making a ticking sound. Then after 30 seconds or so, it continues on its way. Its never acted like this before. I managed to take a shapshot of the Vista Resources window so you can see that "Disk" is almost at 100%. For clarification on what I mean, view this image: http://www.eddieweb.com/answers/res.jpg

So, is this normal? I ran antivirus/antispyware scanners and turned up nothing. Tech Support said it may need to be serviced, but it doesn't do it all the time, except when, of course, I multi-task with the hard drive, such as installing programs, saving, etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Computer is stalling. Hard drive indicator light on solid?norton internet security 2008

sounds like your hd is thrashing. This is caused when the computer is using up a lot of memory and is borrowing memory area from your HD (this is a paging file). The HD tries furiously to read and write as quick as possible (hence the noise). The noise could also be caused by a failing HD. A drive doing excessive read/writing could also be caused by fragmented files (do a defragmentation.)

Also, go to control panel, system, advanced, performance settings and choose adjust for best performance.

Some basic maintenance

1. Do a disk defrag

2. Make sure you have at least 1 Gb of empty disk space

3. If you have 128 Mb of memory you need at least 256 or more to run graphic rich programs and the such, such as gaming, etc.