Problem after installing AVG 9

I installed AVG 9 a few months ago and like many other folks, I immediately had issues.

The initial optimizer scan seemed to make my hard drive go berserk. It sounded like my hard drive was spinning very fast non-stop and wouldn't stop. And the computer ran like molasses. I could see that the avgschx.exe or whatever it was was using 99% of processor so...

I uninstalled AVG 9 and reinstalled AVG 8.5 but now it still sounds like my hard drive starts spinning non-stop shortly after boot up and won't stop. Processor says normal 0% but I can hear something is spinning fast and computer is very slow. Unless there is a second fan in the middle of my laptop, it seems it could only be the hard drive.

I can't be certain it is related to AVG but that is precisely when the problem started. About the same time I upgraded to IE7 and am having issues with two IE.exe files running.

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.