Disk Usage Often at 100%

[jaredseg]

So I recently received an older Toshiba Satellite L70 Laptop from my dad and it works pretty well for the most part, but there is a very big issue that I've run into and I'm at wits end here. What happens is that from startup, the disk is usually at around 100% and it stays there for a long time before dropping back down to normal levels for a bit, and then once again the usage is jacked up to around 100%. It slows down the computer a decent amount, and I know it's not the CPU or anything like that because I'm not doing anything intensive and it has an i7-4700MQ in it. I've tried everything, updating all drivers, disabling superfetch and all that good stuff in services, changing the page file size manually, and even doing a complete reset of windows, where it reinstalls Windows 10 without keeping any files. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Millionshlong]

Have you tried going the antivirus route, sniffing out anything malicious? Although I realize you've got rid of files something might still be there.

 

[bwinzey]

Seeing as how that laptop came originally with 5,400 RPM drives, and how it's an older laptop, I think that it's time to get a new hard drive. Did you check the read/write speeds while it's at 100% usage?

 

[Darthutos]

older system with windows 10?
go the three finger start task manager. and processes press resource manager and disk press total to see which process is using the 100 percent disk usage.

Probably a virus and what you need to do is get a windows 10 iso and burn it to usb key or dvd and format your hard drive. and reinstall everything.

If that doesn't work, your hard drive probably dying.

 

[jaredseg]

older system with windows 10?
go the three finger start task manager. and processes press resource manager and disk press total to see which process is using the 100 percent disk usage.

Probably a virus and what you need to do is get a windows 10 iso and burn it to usb key or dvd and format your hard drive. and reinstall everything.

If that doesn't work, your hard drive probably dying.

First off, I did try checking for viruses and nothing came up. Yes, it is an old 5400 RPM drive, but the thing that is weird to me is that sometimes I'll have almost nothing at all being written or read from the disk and it will still be at 100%.

 

[globalnamespace]

So I recently received an older Toshiba Satellite L70 Laptop from my dad and it works pretty well for the most part, but there is a very big issue that I've run into and I'm at wits end here. What happens is that from startup, the disk is usually at around 100% and it stays there for a long time before dropping back down to normal levels for a bit, and then once again the usage is jacked up to around 100%. It slows down the computer a decent amount, and I know it's not the CPU or anything like that because I'm not doing anything intensive and it has an i7-4700MQ in it. I've tried everything, updating all drivers, disabling superfetch and all that good stuff in services, changing the page file size manually, and even doing a complete reset of windows, where it reinstalls Windows 10 without keeping any files. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Use CTRL-ALT-DEL to open Task Manager.
Click the "Disk" column to order the tasks (highest USE to lowest, you can click it again to re-order if it is upside down)

The task that is using 100% of the CPU will be on top.
You can "End Task" on that process/app without harming the computer, however, that process is the one that is causing the problem.
A further step would be to find what that process is and uninstall the application which you can do from the "Control Panel" in Windows (different versions have differnt names for Control Panel 'uninistall' yet, it is normally something like "Programs and Features".
UNINSTALL whatever program is causing the 100% disk useage, that is all it takes for that problem normally.

 

[bwinzey]

The 100% you see isn't actually maxing out the hard drive, it's the active time, which I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I know that it has something to do with how much time the hard drive spends doing something.