Disabling Spotlight
- Launch Terminal and type the following: sudo nano /etc/hostconfig
- Navigate using the arrow keys down the following entry: SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- Change SPOTLIGHT=-YES- to SPOTLIGHT=-NO- and save it.
- Next, you'll want to disable the index by typing the following in the Terminal:

 mdutil -i off /

And to erase the current Spotlight index, type:

mdutil -E /

Re-Enable Spotlight
- follow the same steps as above, but change SPOTLIGHT=-NO- to SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- type mdutil -i on / in the Terminal
- Reboot, and Spotlight is back as usual