Looking for a "hard drive changes" monitor.

I am trying to find a program that works similar to RegDefend but for the hard drive.

I want to know anytime a file is created/modified on my entire hard drive in realtime.

Is there such a thing?

 

Simple freeware to monitor your system. I use these on XP Home.

FileCRC http://www.enigmaticsoftware.com/ Command line programme which on first run takes a snapshot of your system files and .exe files. A subsequent run will show you any changes that have been made. If a dll, ocx, or exe file is replaced, after installing new software say, it will tell you whether you now have a newer or older version of that file. It gives you the version number of the files replaced and the version number of the new file. It will also tell you if any important files have been deleted. This has happened to me when uninstalling software.You can take a fresh snapshot at any time. (It's relatively quick and the snapshot file is less than 1MB.) This is a really excellent programme for troubleshooting problems which may occur on your PC.

Watcher http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~legoland/minuscule/watcher/index.html Monitors system files, running processes, and start up. Set to run at start up but you can disable this if you want and do a scan whenever you like. A "Quick Scan" takes a few seconds to run. You can also do a "Deep Scan" which doesn't take much longer.

FileMap by BB http://www.dogkennels.net/filemap/ Will detect any changes made in important areas of your system. Simple and straighforward to use. Has a boot alert which you can turn off.

Integrity Checker http://www.sdean12.org/ Takes a snapshot of any folder you choose eg. System32 Folder containing your system files, or your Program Files Folder. Will highlight any changes to the files in this folder and it's sub folders when you run a check. Not quite as detailed as FileCRC and takes quite a few minutes to run if you want it to check everything File CRC checks. It can take separate snapshots of as many folders as you want.

For real time monitoring there is a simple programme called SilentNight Inspector from http://www.silentnight2004.com/Download.html The programme will monitor a folder, say the Windows folder, for any changes and play a sound every time a file is created (usually a prefetch file I must admit). When you open the Inspector window, it gives you details of the files that have been created or deleted whilst it has been running. Takes up nothing in terms of CPU and memory. Run it occasionally just to see what's going on.

WinServices from http://www.dominetrix.org/winservices.htm gives details of your Services. You can take a snapshot and then compare it at any time with the Services currently running. You can have it monitor your services in real time (every minute). CPU usage is nothing and it's very light on memory. If a new Service starts up, or an existing service is stopped, a pop up window appears on the screen to tell you. The sound alarm is optional, very optional. (MS Antispyware monitors your services.)

 

bch, thanks alot man. I really appreciate the time you took for that reply.

Thanks again

 

There's another programme called Spy-The-Spy which iceni60 found http://www.mediachance.com/free/spythespy.htm