Disable Spotlight Move these two files to another safe location and then reboot your mac
/System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.Spotlight.plist
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
If you want to re-enable Spotlight just move those files back to their original location, reboot, and Spotlight will work again. Please backup the files, if you delete them you will not be able to re-enable Spotlight without a system reinstall!