Disk keeps spiking to 100%!

[Anthony82093]

I contacted Microsoft looking for some help, but they had a fee. Which is alright, it's a business after all, but I don't have 100 bucks to throw around. So I was hoping someone here would be able to help me out? My computer sometimes runs slow when I run a program which is odd, it's always been rather fast. So I when to my task manager and it showed my disk at 100%. Which System and compressed memory at top with .1mb/s. Which can't be right. Sometimes it's at 1%, or even 0. Goes up a bit when playing games and what not. But sometimes, during a game, or even during a CCleaner scan, or a Malwaresbytes scan, it'll top out at 100% and come to a crawl, even though it says it's only doing about 6.3mb/s. Then the lag will stop, and the disk % will go to about 30, and it'll say it's doing about 43.4mb/s. Waited about an hour and CCleaner just wouldnt do anything. So I closed it. Ran a defragger, even did a chkdsk.exe /f /r. Which when I was in my Resource and Performance Monitor, it told me my Hard disk had a dirty tip or something. And the Chkdsk.exe /f /r fixed that. But it still spikes to 100% every few minutes. Ran a malware scan, it found 3 and got rid of them. But I'm still having my problem and I'm unsure what else to do about it. I even turned off my superfetch, and Windows search, which some people in a Microsoft forum said it fixed this problem for them.

I'm just out of ideas, and would like to find a fix. If i need to reinstall windows then so be it, but any info would be a big help. Thanks everyone! And sorry for the wall of text!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Anthony!

I'd recommend you to backup the data from the drive on an external or some other storage device before proceeding with the troubleshooting. Once you have a copy of your data safe and sound somewhere else, you should go to your HDD manufacturer's website and find their diagnostic utility. Running those tests will help you determine the exact health and SMART status of the drive. If you can't find such a tool, you can refer to this thread for some pretty decent third-party suggestions: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/282651-32-best-diagnostic-testing-utility

Give it a try and let me know what the test results show.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ktolo]

What sort of HDD is it? It sounds like it is damaged.. "Which when I was in my Resource and Performance Monitor, it told me my Hard disk had a dirty tip or something"
Could mean a disk head??

Either way, it sounds like the hardware is failing somehow. I would consider migrating to a SSD and getting a new HDD. Back up your data to the new HDD.

 

[Anthony82093]

I have a program called Piriform Speccy, made by the same company that made CCleaner I believe? It has some info about my HDD on it. Like the S.M.A.R.T stuff? (I don't know much about HDD's) Also I do not have a 2nd HDD, other then 1 I took out of my ps4 when I upgraded it, though i'm unsure how it works really. It shows up in the "This PC" windows as "New Volume (E", where as my HDD shows up as, "Local Disk (C". So would it work like a usb? Just use window's backup program to backup everything onto it? Piriform Speccy shows this info about my HDD, if that helps? I'm unsure what brand it is, so idk where to go to get the diagnose test.

ATA WDC WD10EALX-009 SCSI Disk Device
Heads 16
Cylinders 129,201
Tracks 31,008,240
Sectors 1,953,519,120
SATA type SATA-III 6.0Gb/s
Device type Fixed
ATA Standard ATA8-ACS
Serial Number WD-WCATR9712297
Firmware Version Number 15.01H15
LBA Size 48-bit LBA
Power On Count 1133 times
Power On Time 1105.5 days
Features S.M.A.R.T., NCQ
Max. Transfer Mode SATA III 6.0Gb/s
Used Transfer Mode SATA III 6.0Gb/s
Interface SATA
Capacity 931 GB
Real size 1,000,204,886,016 bytes
RAID Type None
S.M.A.R.T
Status Good
Temperature 40 °C
Temperature Range OK (less than 50 °C)
S.M.A.R.T attributes
Attribute name Real value Current Worst Threshold Raw Value Status
01 Read Error Rate 0 200 200 51 0000000006 Good
03 Spin-Up Time 3741 ms 185 176 21 0000000E9D Good
04 Start/Stop Count 1,157 99 99 0 0000000485 Good
05 Reallocated Sectors Count 0 200 200 140 0000000000 Good
07 Seek Error Rate 0 100 253 0 0000000000 Good
09 Power-On Hours (POH) 1105d 11h 64 64 0 00000067A3 Good
0A Spin Retry Count 0 100 100 0 0000000000 Good
0B Recalibration Retries 0 100 100 0 0000000000 Good
0C Device Power Cycle Count 1,133 99 99 0 000000046D Good
C0 Power-off Retract Count 95 200 200 0 000000005F Good
C1 Load/Unload Cycle Count 1,061 200 200 0 0000000425 Good
C2 Temperature 40 °C 107 95 0 0000000028 Good
C4 Reallocation Event Count 0 200 200 0 0000000000 Good
C5 Current Pending Sector Count 1 200 200 0 0000000001 Good
C6 Uncorrectable Sector Count 0 200 200 0 0000000000 Good
C7 UltraDMA CRC Error Count 0 200 200 0 0000000000 Good
C8 Write Error Rate / Multi-Zone Error Rate 1 200 200 0 0000000001 Good
Partition 0
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #0
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number E403C658
Size 99 MB
Used Space 34.5 MB (34%)
Free Space 65 MB (66%)
Partition 1
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #1
Disk Letter C:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number 8EE2479F
Size 930 GB
Used Space 442 GB (47%)
Free Space 488 GB (53%)
Partition 2
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #2
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number A01375F5
Size 449 MB
Used Space 336 MB (74%)
Free Space 113 MB (26%)

 

[ktolo]

It's a Western Digital - goto their site and download a copy of WD - Lifeguard... and run the diagnostics.

Backup your data first!!! (as advised above by SuperSoph_WD) OR you could lose it!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, Anthony!

Apparently the OEM drive in your system is a Western Digital Caviar Blue HDD. You can try running the QUICK and EXTENDED tests from the WD's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics for Windows utility as well and benchmark the results. Here's a link to the software: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=dZGepX
Either way, the drive seems to be in a good condition. I'd recommend you to track what software is using the HDD and causing these spikes through Task Manager/Resource monitor. You can try resolving the issue by reinstalling the programs themselves and see if that will improve the HDD activity.

Keep us posted.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[Anthony82093]

Alright. Thanks for the info guys! I have tried tracking it, but it happens with all programs. So it's a bit confusing. Also my 2nd HDD is only 465gbs. Windows Backup tells me I need 533.3gbs. So I might have to wait until I can get a 2nd HDD. Or just wing it and hope for the best. D: If these diagnose tests don't work, I think I might just try to save my games save data(mainly steam games. I don't know how, but I'm sure a quick google can fix that!), then just wipe the drive, and start fresh. Again, thanks for all the help guys! I appreciate it! 😀