Hard drive having problems (100% disk + more)

[Saint Grimm]

I recently built a new PC, BOTH HDDs that newegg sent me did not work. One wouldn't power up at all, the other wouldn't allow me to partition it or put the OS on it - So instead, I just used the HDD out of my old PC, which already had a few issues.

In the old PC, when the PC started, it would be at 100% disk in task manager for 5 - 10 minutes, then go to normal (3 - 10%). I also had a lot of BSODs on the old PC, I couldn't leave it idle for longer than 30 mins or it'd BSOD (even with no programs running).

When I put it in this PC, I did a few self-tests... I let it sit idle for about 24 hours, no blue screen. I'm on day 4 of having this PC now, and have noticed a lot of issues.

MOST of the time, the disk sits at 100% in task manager. However, sometimes it'll drop to 3%, then quickly make it's way back up to 100%. Sometimes, but rarely, it'll even drop to 0% for a couple seconds before shooting back up to 100%. But most commonly, if it's not sitting at 100%, it's going back and forth between 100% and 80%.

But there's something that's making it hard for me to figure out if it's having an issue with something in my build or not. At once I was building a new PC and planned to have 100% new items in it, I quit monitoring the disk % in task manager. So I'm not sure if the old PC was also staying at 100% before I switched the drives.

I've tried a number of things. I found elsewhere on these forums to disable windows search and something else (not the only place i saw to try disabling them with cmd, so you guys probably know what I'm talking about lol). Disabling the search made it immediately change to 4% Disk - But it also immediately started working it's way back up to 100%. Same result for disabling the other item.

I also saw to run malwarebytes, which did find a few things and fixed them, but still no change - 100% Disk.

I decided to do a chkdsk with tuneup utilities 2014 while I was sleeping last night. It got to 12% long before I went to sleep, and was still 12% when I checked it today (over 8 hours) - So I took the risk and shut the PC down.

PC started up normally. I used CMD to cancel the chkdsk so it wouldn't continue attempting to do it on start up.

I ran a program that came on my mobo's disc (just a free trial) called Advanced SystemCare 9 Pro. It's very similar to tuneup utilities, but so far seems to do a better job at things. It also has a disk doctor, I ran that, and it found errors. It wanted to restart my PC to fix the errors. I restarted, it ran a chkdsk. When PC came back on, I ran the disk doctor again... It found NEW errors. So I did chkdsk again. I've done it about 5 times now, every time disk doctor finds new errors.

However, on the 4th time, it caused a blue screen at "scanning and repairing disk c: 100%". The BSOD said "Critical_Service_Failed" and I had to run start up repair. Start up repair said it couldn't automatically fix the problem, and restarted... However, after restarting, it was back at scanning/repairing 100%. Restarted itself, coming up with scanning/repairing 100% yet again, and then after a minute or 2, started windows normally.

i currently have disk doctor open with the errors again. I've noticed some similarities in the details of the scans. Stage 1 ALWAYS finds "0 bad file records processed" and Stage 2 ALWAYS finds errors. They're always different errors, but they are ALWAYS "in index $I30"

The time it caused the blue screen, I'm pretty sure it had chkdsk in the list of errors. It was something like

Index entry CHKDSK-(long line of numbers).bin in index $I30 of file (not sure on the number) is incorrect.

Here is the current list:


C:\ Volume Label: OS, File System: NTFS

Volume label is OS.
Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
1337344 file records processed.
File verification completed.
17870 large file records processed.
0 bad file records processed.
Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
Index entry PK811A~1.BIN in index $I30 of file 2076 is incorrect.
Index entry pkg160219000000007f.bin in index $I30 of file 2076 is incorrect.
Index entry data.dat in index $I30 of file 1163412 is incorrect.
1516264 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Errors found. CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode.


However, I would like to point out, now that I've done those disk doctor checks, it stays lower A LOT longer and drops to low % Disk A LOT more often. Just a moment ago it was going from 0% to 3% Disk for roughly 5 minutes or so, but is now back to 100%.

Should I continue restarting and fixing the errors that disk doctor is finding? Or are those types of errors just something that'll continue to pop up everytime, no matter how many times I do dskchk?

I also plan to do a scan with avast, was going to do it first thing today, but after tuneup's disk doctor chkdsk froze at 12%, I've been doing scans with SystemCare 9's disk doctor all day.

 

[Kevern_11]

I think it dead, r.i.p. In all honesty, just order an SSD and leave those troubles behind as it more then likely is your hard drive giving you the issues.

 

[Mike Prior]

Get a free trial of "Hard Disk Sentinel." This will tell you if the drive needs replacing or not. If it's o.k. (doubtfull) in task manager, click on the title "Disk" which will toggle the services with the highest disk activity.

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

I would recomment testing using diagnostics provided by the hard disk manufacture

Look at Hirens boot cd for diagnostics for existing and past disk manufacturers

Or goto the wd or Seagate websites

If you have bad sectors, then the hard disk is dying

It is unusual to have doa hard disks ?
Have you checked the power supply voltage is within tolerance of 5%?

Again using a old hard disk with its existing windows on a new motherboard often has problems

Buy a new hard disk preferably a retail packed one not oem
You get better packaging often a longer warantee and a new new sata data cable

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[Saint Grimm]

Well, since I posted that message, it's STAYED very low, highest is 10%. EXCEPT when I started TERA. TERA was the biggest/best graphics free MMORPG I could find to test my limits on my new PC. I wanted to see if the PC could handle it on max graphics (as I said, it's the best graphics I could personally find in a free game) and I also wanted to see if the 100% disk would effect it. (I downloaded it last night, but have played it before in the past, however, my old PC only ran it on mid settings)

With 100% Disk last night, after hitting the "play" button on the game's launcher, it took roughly 30 minutes for the game to open.

Today, it was 3% Disk, however hitting play caused it to go as high as 98% Disk (back and forth from high 80s to high 90s) and took it roughly 3 - 5 minutes for the game to open and I didn't leave it open but for a few moments, but it seemed to stay around 85% once the game cinematic started. I'm not sure, but I don't think that's normal as I read somewhere online that a disk should rarely ever get close to 100%. And 98% is pretty damn close. So is there anything else I can try? Or should I just keep doing disk doctor until it finds no errors?

(Just a note, I also ran Fallout 4 yesterday, took about 20 minutes to load game on ultra settings, I thought it was due to being on max graphics, but I haven't tested it today but I now assume it is due to the 100% Disk)


EDIT: No one had replied when I started typing this message - I can't afford an SSD. I spent pretty much all my extra cash on building this thing. Only reason I was able to get WD drives (should be here tomorrow) is because newegg refunded me for the broken seagates they sent me.

I'll check out disk sentinel right away.

I was hoping to use this Drive as a slave when I got the new WDs. As the new ones are 1TB and this one is 1.4TB with 650GB free, meaning I'd have to lose a number of modding files (I create mods for skyrim) in order to completely drop this drive - So I actually really need it.

However, all I have running atm is Maxthon cloud broswer, SystemCare + it's disk doctor and task maanger, and the drive is staring between 0 and 2%... Not sure what changed between starting my original post and typing this, but I'll check out what I can.

If sentinel doesn't work for me, I'll try manufactor's website!

Thanks to all 3 of you.


EDIT2: If anyone knows of a different ---FREE--- MMORPG than TERA that has better graphics to better test my limits, please let me know. If this drive does turn out to be un-savable, I'll wait until I put my WD in to test it.

I have ESO, but I don't think it's a harder load than TERA, ESO loaded faster yesterday at 100% Disk than TERA did a little bit ago lol

 

[Saint Grimm]

Last message got a bit long, so I'll just make a new one.

I ran the only test I seemingly can for sentinel. Came back good.

"The hard disk status is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found and there are no spin up or data transfer errors.

No actions needed."

However, I'll try a manufacturer test now just to be sure.


EDIT: Seagate's (cringes) Seatools found 0 errors in a short test. But now that the drive is staying so low, I'm going to assume that last disk doctor scan fixed the main issue causing the problem. However, I'm donig a long test now and if it finds no errors either, I'll just continue running SystemCare's disk doctor either for the rest of today, or until the scan it does no longer finds errors.