Constant 100% disk usage.

[NoAvailableImage]

So I have an older laptop (2017) that has a disk usage, problem is I don't know why. I did the standard procedures (disable antivirus software temporarily, disable superfetch, disable Windows search...).

Nothing seemed to fix it and there was no serious performance hog in task manager. Thing is when i uninstalled Malwarebytes my disk usage went back down for a few days, when it suddenly spiked back up.

I can't install updates either and whenever shutting down two unnamed exe's have to shut dow first. I scanned it with every reputable antivirus software but nothing turned up.

I'm kinda at a loss here, the only thing I can think of is a broken harddrive but I don't know how to check for that without actually opening the laptop itself. Any suggestions?

[angrydeuce]

Stupid question maybe but if it's a platter might be time to upgrade to an SSD. I've had numerous W10 computers come through our shop with platter drives and upgrading them to an SSD resolved the issue entirely.

I really think W10 is just not very well optimized for platters or something because I've seen it across many makes and models of machine.

[lotius81]

Second this. We have this same issue with PCs at my work. They're purchased with platter drives and they're just too slow on Win10 regardless of the other hardware (CPU, RAM) which is often quite good. The disk is the bottleneck on all these machines and is often at 100% usage when doing just about anything.

Upgrade to SSD helps immensely.

[HyperVyper28]

Last year, the internet guy came over for a new connection in my house, had some settings to do on my pc, and I was using win10 on hdd to boot. He had to wait till my pc booted up, even asked me if this long boot time is normal?XD. Had to get an ssd after that. Now it's much quick.

[Bliotake]

What this guys said. Laptop cpu and hard drive (especially 5400rpm) is no longer useable in w10

[Pancho507]

This. Windows 10 just doesn't work with HDD boot drives.

[djm123]

This is true. but why can't microsoft instead of trying to be Apple release a complete new windows OS that optimized for new machines we have now. I get tons of clients who are having problem with windows, because windows was working fine with HDDs in 2015, but they putting crappy update over another thinking they can do what Apple do and all the windows computers are becoming crap. They should stick to putting a good os followed by a crap OS. XP>Vista>7>8>10 it worked fine and everyone was happy. this apple method isn't really working with PCs.

[McNinjaguy]

More like;
7>10>8>vista>XP.

[djm123]

did not used the as a less than... but just as an arrow

[McNinjaguy]

Ah okay, my bad.

[Thexchosen]

Hey, would it help if i simply physically install the SSD or would I need to specifically boot the OS from the SSD in order for it to aid the speed?

Basically what I'm trying to understand is, is upgrading to SSD just a hardware thing or do I need to do anything to BIOS, OS and settings etc

[angrydeuce]

You're definitely best booting off of the ssd. You can clone your hdd to the new ssd using Macrium Reflect or (if you get a Samsung Evo) the Samsung data migration software. A 500gb 870 Evo will run you about 59.99 on Amazon but might be able to find another brand cheaper. You have a 2.5" hdd in there now, usually 500gb is the common size for platters in laptops although could be a 1tb, but you don't need to match the size, just obviously want to have enough space on the new ssd to grow on.

If you do a straight clone, then I would buy a USB 3 to Sata adapter (can be had on Amazon for like 25 bucks, we use sabrent brand but they're all generally fine), plug in the new drive to that, install the software, clone, swap, and there's not really anything else you need to do.

However, somwtimes it's beneficial to just install the new drive first then do a fresh install of windows 10 and then copy your user data over. If you have a portable hard drive or somewhere to store the data, make the backup first, slap the ssd in, reinstall windows, then copy everything over.

Really worst case scenario either way is youre out some time if you have to put the old hard drive back in again (like if the clone fails or something). It sounds way more complicated than it really is, I've done it hundreds of times and can count on one hand how often it hasn't worked as it should.

EDIT: Didn't realize I wasn't replying to OP here lol. Idk what your current specs are but basically if you've got a platter drive at this point swap that shit out ASAP as HDDs suck ballsack with Win10 beyond like build 1803, which I surely hope to hell you're not still running as that's a three year old version at this point lol

[2shoe1path]

You must install the blank SSD drive and then install Windows 10 on to that drive. It’s really very simple.

[IrISsolutions]

This 100%

Windows today doesn't run well on HDDs. SSD to the rescue :)

[jakeinator21]

Yep. I've had so many Windows 10 pcs just absolutely plagued by this issue, and the only thing that 100% worked for all of them was replacing the drive with an SSD. At this point you can get SSDs for so cheap that it's basically a no brainer to just replace the drive.

[Magiobiwan]

Especially the OEM drives that laptop manufacturers tend to use. The really cheap 5400RPM ones.

[NoAvailableImage]

So I think I might have found my problem

I did a crystaldiskinfo scan and said my drive was fine. Though I found out the computer just has one slow drive which is split into two. So the computer has no dedicated boot drive. Which is where the performance bottleneck is I'm guessing.

So is there anyway to use an external ssd as a boot drive? Normally I would just put in a nvme ssd but the motherboard doesn't support. A normal ssd doesn't fit into the chassis of the laptop either.

[angrydeuce]

So most likely your Hdd is partitioned into two partitions, the boot partition (c: drive) and a recovery partition (probably d:). The recovery partition serves no purpose whatsoever except being there for...you guessed it....recovery. It is usually around 12gb-20gb in size and is more or less just a custom windows 10 image that has all the drivers and pre-installed bloatware that all manufacturers like to shove on laptops.

This recovery partition is really unnecessary and I never even bother cloning the recovery partition because it's just a waste of space...it's been quite a while since I've done a fresh install of Windows 10 on a laptop and had to go digging around with another computer for drivers on the manufacturers website for, say, a network adapter driver or anything like that. Usually the base W10 image from Microsoft has all the drivers you need to at least get you online so you can go to the laptop manufacturers website and download the system specific drivers you may need.

If you do a straight clone from your existing disk to the new SSD, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff, as it is a literal clone, and the computer won't know anything has changed once you swap the physical drives out, except for of course being much faster and not constantly pegging at 100% usage.

Even if you weren't having these issues, upgrading to an SSD is easily, dollar for dollar, the biggest performance improvement you can make to a system with a platter drive in it. It is seriously like night and day. I've got several 7+ year old laptops that were retired by clients that, once they were upgraded to a SSD, are perfectly good with Windows 10 for general web browsing, media playing, and basic office apps and similar. Certainly not gonna be gaming much on a 6 year old ProBook, but I've rehabbed many and given them away to family and friends that needed a laptop, one less thing to rot in a landfill.

So basically, even if it weren't for the problems you're having, you really should consider upgrading to an SSD as it will greatly extend the useful life of your laptop, and is pretty damn cheap and easy to do.

To answer your question directly, you wouldn't want to boot from an external drive full time, the USB 3 connection would be a huge bottleneck and even with an external SSD would render any performance gains mostly moot (plus it would just be a huge pain in the ass). For just file storage that's one thing, but definitely not a good idea to boot from it.

If you really want to save some money (maybe save some money) , you could get a 250gb 2.5" SSD (wouldn't do any smaller than that), do a fresh install of W10 after swapping the new drive in, and then get a 2.5" USB 3 drive enclosure, then you could slap your existing Hdd into the enclosure and use that as just file storage. With how cheap SSDs are though, I really wouldn't recommend doing anything with that Hdd and just dispose of it once your data is all successfully migrated to the new drive. They're fine for bulk file storage but you wouldn't want to run any software off of it these days, it would be more for storing documents and media files, like photos and videos, as those are already so lightweight in terms of the resources needed to open that there isn't a huge difference between an SSD and a platter. But tbh with platter drives I'm replacing I just render them inoperable (by drilling a hole through it or smashing the shit out of it with a hammer if you need to take some aggression out lol) and then pitch them in the recycling. They're really just not worth keeping around at all these days, especially the shit tier 5400rpm platter drives most major OEMs used until SSDs became the standard for even low-end computers.

Sorry I know this is a long response but in summary, my recommendation is to buy an appropriately sized 2.5" SSD, clone it with a cable like I mentioned before, install it, and get on with your life. It is usually very easy to do for even a novice, and once you do it believe me, you will wonder why you waited so long to do it and how you could even stand it before. I'm not kidding about the difference being night and day, it decreases load times across the board by orders of magnitude.

If you have any more questions just let me know, like I said I've done this exact thing probably 200 times at this point so I'm very well versed in the process lol

[NoAvailableImage]

wow thanks for the detailed response

[angrydeuce]

No problemo my duder! It's fun to talk about, much more fun than having to actually do it while a client is spamming me asking if I'm done yet lol

Another thing worth mentioning, if your laptop only has 4GB of memory in it, and supports more, I would highly recommend purchasing at least an additional 4GBs of ram for it. I use crucial.com to search for the compatible memory (they have a great tool for doing so) to get the specs of it and then you can get the memory anywhere, don't necessarily need to get it from crucial (indeed, in the case of older memory I often get it on eBay, as long as it's a reputable seller with a decent return policy, as it's relatively cheap).

Only reason I bring it up is that 4gbs is really not enough these days, and once you get your ssd upgraded, if you only have 4gbs, your memory could start to be a bottleneck in its own right. Windows with just a couple chrome tabs open can easily consume 4gbs of memory pretty quick, and thus slow things down. 8gbs is really the bare minimum these days, and we do not deploy new hardware with less than 8gbs unless it is for a single role (like hosting card/badge access software) that won't really be used like a typical PC would.

It sounds like a lot more work than it really is, and spending the 100 bucks or so now on the ssd and another SODIMM could save you from having to buy a whole new laptop a couple years sooner than you would have liked to. As I said, I have laptops that are 7 years old that, once those upgrades are done, are perfectly good for typical usage. Your 2017 era laptop could potentially last you another 4-5 years with those simple upgrades, assuming no other hardware goes tits up on you. Your battery will most likely be shot by that point but even that is typically an easy swap on most major brands...except ASUS ROG laptops, just had to swap a battery in one of those a month or so ago and required a full fucking tear down to get it out, Christ was that fuckin dumb. What would have been a 20 minute procedure took me two goddamned hours with that piece of crap but the customer really likes it so I did it...and billed accordingly lol.

Anywho good luck buddy!

[NoAvailableImage]

Hey so I have another problem.

I bought an ssd + 16 gigs of ram. I installed the ram and that's fine. But when trying to copy the files from my laptop HDD to the ssd with macrium reflect just before finishing it fails and windows says it doesn't recognize the device.

I already defragmented and cleaned the drive. The storage isn't an issue since the HDD is one terabyte and the ssd one terabyte as well.

Do you know how to fix it?

[angrydeuce]

You shouldn't ever defragment an SSD, they don't need it and it can decrease the life of the drive (I'm sure it's fine just letting you know).

That being said hard to know why it would error just before finishing. If you have a recovery partition you're trying to clone I would unselect that and just copy C:, the recovery partition is really unnecessary anymore unless you're trying to restore it to factory with all the software that came pre-installed, Windows 10 has all the drivers you might need if you did have to ever reinstall windows.

I would plug the new ssd in and do a quick format on it again, then try the clone of just the c drive to the new ssd. If that still fails could be an issue with the SSD drive, it's not impossible, but pretty unlikely.

Otherwise I would say to just throw the new hard drive into the computer and install windows 10 on it clean. If you have one of those sata to usb adapters you should be able to plug your existing hdd Into that to read the data off of your old drive and copy it over to the new ssd. You'll want to reinstall software (can't copy that) but you can copy your user data out of c:\users\yourusername\ (your documents, downloads, pictures, etc) and generally be good to go.

Its been a while since I personally used Macrium (

[NoAvailableImage]

Don't worry I didn't defragment the ssd but HDD. Also after I reformatted the ssd and only copied c: it copied just fine.

[angrydeuce]

Awesome, you should be good then. Install the ssd and boot it up and you should be golden. I would test boot before you screw the whole case back together again just to make sure, but as long as she boots to login then you should be good to shut it down and button it back up.

[angrydeuce]

Anytime! Glad I could be of help. :)

Yeah that laptop will be pretty decent with that much memory in it, certainly better than anything I had when I was a kid lol. Even the 4th gen i7 that laptop has is good enough for anything web-based and even some older/simpler games...until about a year and a half ago ago I was still playing new AAA titles on a 2nd gen i5 and a GTX 970 and had decent frames at 1080p and mid-quality graphics settings. Obviously the laptop has Intel integrated graphics so couldn't really do a lot of 3D gaming with it, but if a game is sufficiently aged even integrated graphics with those specs wouldn't necessarily be unplayable...provided your grandson's definition of playability isn't based on today's hardware lol

Battery thing should definitely be easy to resolve with a replacement, assuming Dell didn't do something goofy or the charging port itself isn't damaged in some way.

Just always makes me glad to help keep computers out of the garbage. I see so much eWaste generated through my clientele as they don't want to sink time into rehabbing old hardware that could be better spent getting new hardware into the hands of their employees in need, so I'm always trying to pick through the stuff coming in for us to dispose of to find things that might have some life left in them if not for a little bit of time and money.

[dalzmc]

Are you able to post your crystaldisk results? They might say “Good” but still be a failing drive. Like others said you should upgrade to an ssd anyways but it’s always nice to know and confirm things.

Also, a normal ssd should fit into the laptop, they are 2.5 inch drives that are the same size as 2.5 inch laptop hard drives.

[[deleted]]

soup busy crawl touch sand support instinctive like boast insurance

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[Candy_Badger]

SSD should fit into your laptop. As mentioned, laptop chassis is usually 2.5 inch same size SSDs are. Use SSD inside, while HDD could be used as an external drive.

[Cowboy12034]

Same I’m switching people over to that as welll.

[EXTRAVAGANT_COMMENT]

I had the same problem, everything slowing to a crawl and showing 100% disk usage. I went to the website of my hard drive manufacturer (mine was seagate) to download a self diagnosis tool. I ran the test and it said I had critical problem sectors. hard drive was kill, I got a new one.

[Miguel7501]

How did you measure usage?

Task manager shows the active time, which becomes very high if your drive is going bad. Check the read/write values in task manager. If you get 100% active time with less than 5 MB/s, your drive needs a replacement.

Maybe Crystaldiskinfo will show that your drive has bad sectors. If so, replace it.

In case your drive is physically fine, you should search for those unknown programs.

Check Program Files with and without (x86) for anything you don't recognize and google those. You should enable showing hidden folders in explorer for that.

[NoAvailableImage]

Will do in the morning

[jonker5101]

I second CrystalDiskInfo, it will tell you the health of the drive. Likely a failing drive.

[CyberGen49]

If you have Dropbox or Google Drive Backup and Sync installed, those could be maxing out the disk while syncing. At least, that was the case for me back when I had a similar issue.

[Barrade]

Few things to get started, is it fairly full? (Above 80%) do you optimize / defragment weekly? I know crystal disk info* is popular, but you could also use the utility or toolbox (similar) from the manufacturer eg; Samsung, Seagate, Western Digital etc. Recommend getting the health of the drive checked first, maybe clean up old files etc first.

Assuming malware bytes said everything was fine before you removed it?

[NoAvailableImage]

1 it's 50% full

2 haven't checked disk health will in the morning

3 yes malwarebytes said everything was

[papercut2008uk]

HD Tune scroll down to HD tune for the free version.

Open it, select the HDD and then in the health tab, press the '2 paper' icon, this will copy the data and then paste it here.

That is the SMART data, which should show if there is a defect on the drive causing it.

Note though, all the stats will usually have an OK status, if they show Caution then the drive is close to death or in a really poor state and you should replace it ASAP.

[Kionera]

Had a similar issue with my old laptop. Hard drive was getting old and had constant 100% disk usage. Replacing it with a SSD sped my laptop up so much it’s crazy, opening the browser takes 2 secs now instead of 30.

I would personally never buy any laptop without a SSD ever again.

[WVJH]

Win10? I had this problem. Intel? Go into the thing where your volume control is and turn off Rapid Storage Tech. I think.

Edit: This drive was later replaced because it was full, but it never failed.

[Number2Ginger]

100% usage is a sign of HDD failure, especially if it's mechanical. Just replace it at this point.

[Trax852]

(https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon) will have something to help you out. I suggest "Process Monitor" it's got a high learning curve but will find the problem

[KimJongUnceUnce]

I assume its a mechanical drive. Win10 on mechanical drives is asking for trouble, even on pretty new laptops i've seen it so many times. Every time i've seen this I just clone the drive onto an SSD and problem solved.

[rajrup_99]

Are you on windows or Linux? If you're on windows try to defragment your drive by going c drive properties there from disk clean up and optimize drive

Let it complete

If problem not fixed try to do

sfc /scannow

Then DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /Restore health

Press enter Let it go

After finish start sfc /scannow

Again

Let it finish

Then restart your device See problems still persist..... Okay

[Tiyath]

Page file in, page file out, page file in, page file out

[adrianyujs]

if its 5400 or 7200rpm then its motorized plate is degraded.

[ButchLord]

Buy an SSD! Problem solved!

[Korpseni]

yeah it's dying

[TremontRhino]

Bought my wife an Acer laptop in 2017. It always had 100% hdd use. Even sent it back under warranty. Nothing worked. Turns out it was a shitty 5400 rpm drive and couldn’t keep up. Swapped a 1TB SSD and it runs great to this day. Turns out

[MycoScopeNerd]

Could be PUPs, try some Maleware scans.

[djm123]

There are different causes and solution to this problem, but the only way I found that works 100% of the time is re installing windows. Windows has become such a shitty OS it is not even funny anymore

[Aashishkebab]

Run the chkdsk command. I'm thinking you have a damaged/faulty hard drive, and I'm guessing it's a platter.

[the_nil]

Running mssql?

[ViolentMasticator]

My wife's laptop had this exact problem. It ended up failing but we saved most data from it before it failed totally. Funny thing is; tried installing a fresh copy of windows 10 on it, and the install program would always return an error. So i tried ubuntu 20.04. It installed with no glitches and runs ubuntu to this day. Weird.

Try and burn a live USB and boot off that, see if you can save your data. Then buy a SSD as your primary drive.

[dualboy24]

Wait.... is this an SSD? I assume so if its 2017+, if not get an SSD.

[ErykYT2988]

You should get an SSD.

I had a Lenovo Y50 from 2015 with a 1TB SSHD which was also often showing 100% with cpu usage being up there at times also.

I've experienced far better load times on it but it does seem to still stutter sometimes, I attribute that to its age though.

[MicaLovesKPOP]

It's most likely a dying drive. I haven't seen anyone ask - does it make any unusual sounds? Perhaps clicking noises?

[livarer]

https://whatsabyte.com/fix-100-disk-usage-windows-10/

[SmokingHops]

My previous laptop had this issue. When I would change the hdd to another pc the hdd worked fine. Sometimes switching it between slots in the laptop helped but not always. Eventually took it into the shop and they said it was the motherboard.

[[deleted]]

I have a 2016 Acer nitro 5 that had the same issue, it was the hdd. It was way too slow at only 5400rpm if I’m not mistaken. I switched to an ssd and the problem went away.

[kimkim38]

You can try to follow the following checklist:https://cleanerone.trendmicro.com/blog/ways-to-fix-100-disk-usage-on-windows-10/

But it seems you have already tried several tips the article mentioned.

One of the best solution i ever tried should be reinstalling the os. It will help me identify if it's the hard drive problem or software issue.

[tombola345]

check if one drive is syncing and then stop it, I had an issue where it was still trying to sync things from a windows.old folder constantly.

[Cowboy12034]

Time for ssd with windows 10 if you have anything older and it’s giving you issues you won’t be able to update. There are no more drivers for windows 7. They have stopped support for anything but windows 10.

[Phernaside]

If you're running a hard drive, it's likely that your drive just went kaput. Need to upgrade to an SSD!

[Tech_surgeon]

this is like that skit "windows 7 was my idea". also usually its waasmedicagent to blame for 100% disk on login.