100% Disk Usage

[Sunshine]

Hi Brian,

I have been having this issue for a while. I have a PC laptop running Windows 10 and Photoshop latest. It is over 4 years old, and has 16GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 642GB free out of 917GB. The last time I shut down was just before posting this thread. I run a cleanup program about once a month.

My disk usage stays at 100%. I did a lot of things including but not limited to disk fragmentation, cleaning HD, following MS instructions available on their website for 100% disk usage issue and what not. It fixes itself for a while, which means I start computer and leave it alone for 30 mins, and disk usage goes down to about 40%. I replaced battery too, this last weekend as it started giving me error and the laptop wouldn't work without being plugged in. However, the disk usage stays the same. Now its not even going down after 30 mins. the startup programs are nearly all gone too and for the life of me i cant figure out what could be wrong. Attached screenshots were taken just a few seconds apart and show different programs being on top of disk usage. Is running a car over it the only option, because the programs aka PS takes ages to open at this level. But I will be left without a laptop to do anything. Cant afford a new one. On forums it looks like a known windows issue and i have used all methods recommended by MS to fix it but nothing has changed. Please help!

[Sunshine]

back to normal now. Nothing special that i did except starting PS nevertheless. is there a solution to this freak problem?

[Sunshine]

@Brian i really need help with this  

[Brian]

There are so many different things that can cause this. It's one of those weird problems. It sounds like you could need more RAM, but of course you are on a laptop and upgrading past 16GB usually isn't an option.

It could be Windows Search is turned on and is trying to index things. That's the usual culprit. It could be something as simple as the Pagefile.sys file needs to be reset (The Windows Swap File. It's like the "Scratch Disk" for Windows). It could be your power settings and you should turn off hibernation. It could be Windows Update needs to be run. Yes, even if Windows says "No updates available..." (or whatever,) Windows LIES. Head to the Gear Icon and click on "Check for Updates" and let it go out and do it's thing. You'll be surprised on how much stuff it finds to update after it tells you there are no updates!! Defraging a HD doesn't do squat in the 21st Century. Hell, it didn't work miracles back in the 1990's either. Also, hopefully you did not defrag a SSD Drive. If you did, that's VERY BAD. It's fine to run on a Traditional Spinning HD though, just not a SSD Drive.

You could also do a Windows System File Check and see if it finds anything.

1. Click Start Button
2. Type CMD and the Command.exe should appear in the top of the search box.
3. Right-Click on the CMD.exe and choose "Run as Administrator."
4. Then at the command prompt type: sfc /scannow (That's sfc then a single space, then a slash with scannow just after it.)
5. Hit enter and go do something else like watch a Netflix Show.
6. Reboot the computer after it completes. Best Case scenario, it finds stuff and fixes things. Worst case, it doesn't find any corruption and we are back to square one.

I did find this article on the web with some suggestions.

Give this video a Watch, too.

Honestly, I'd start by turning off Windows Search first. The video covers how to do this as "Step 1." Don't bother with running Defrag. I'd also run Windows updates, let it install, reboot, THEN check for Windows Updates again. Keep doing this until it comes back with "No updates Available."

Then get back to me.

[Brian]

Oh, one more thing. Turning off Windows search isn’t a bad thing. It actually helps your computer’s performance. It’s one of those things that Microsoft Engineers thinks it’s a good thing, having your search results pop up immediately instead of waiting like 5 seconds or so. That’s all Windows Search does. One has to ask themselves, how often to they need to search for a file on their computers? Most Home users know where their files are and don’t have to go hunting for them.  

[Sunshine]

 

Here's how it looks right now. It did updates all day today. Search was already off and so was the hibernate mode. ALso did the scan but it didn't find anything. WHen i restarted after doing all the above steps, it still showed 100% disk usage, but that dropped in about 10 mins or so. Not sure if the problem is fixed, but definitely looks better for now. I will post again if it starts messing up. Thanks a lot for your help. The detailed instructions helped a lot. Really appreciate that