Why is the disk accessed when the system is idle?
 

GNU/linux kernel 2.6, Slackware 12.0

Hi:
Every now and then, say with a period of one hour, the system begins accessing the hdd and doesn't stop accessing for at least 5 minutes. What can be the reason? Can it have something to do with the swap partition?

Enrique.

maybe a cron job or anacron.. or similar type program which is scheduled to do this.

Run 'top' or 'ps aux'. That should let you find out what's running.