HDD high usage and crash

[MattY213]

I built my computer last June and around 4 months ago, my HDD started acting up. Every time I start up my computer, open an program or game, or sometimes even just while sitting idle, my disk usage will spike to 100%. When checking task manager, most of the programs that are supposedly using alot of disk usage are at most using 1.5 mb/s. Usually, the task titled "system" is at the top and using the most usage. While my disk usage is at 100%, my computer will slow down and lock up. It has even crashed a few times and after automatically rebooting, my hard drive is not listed in the BIOS. I have to do a complete restart to get my hard drive to appear in the BIOS. I have used a couple programs like HD tune pro and Data Lifeguard to check my hard drive, and none of them say that there are any problems. I am unsure if this is purely a problem with my hard drive or if there is a problem with something else, like my operating system. Please let me know if there is anything that I should do or check.

Spec:
AMD FX-8320
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. M5A97 R2.0
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 722MHz
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (EVGA)

 

[i7Baby]

Change sata cable. Check your running AHCI in bios.

If everything is OK then replace the HDD. Better safe than sorry.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, MattY213!

I'm very sorry to hear about your issues with the WD Blue. 🙁 I'd check the connections and BIOS settings again as @i7Baby suggested.
Another way to determine what is causing this problem is to plug the drive in another computer and see how it will be recognized there.
If the problem persist, I strongly recommend getting in touch with our tech support. Your HDD should still be within the warranty period, since you build the system in June. You should be able to send out an RMA request and get a replacement product from us.
Here are the contacts: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=03sUqm
How to RMA your product: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=IA8mLd

Hope this was helpful! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[MattY213]

Change sata cable. Check your running AHCI in bios.

If everything is OK then replace the HDD. Better safe than sorry.

I checked my bios and it says I am running AHCI, I still need to swap out the SATA cable. I will back up my data soon just in case I need to replace.

 

[MattY213]

Hey there, MattY213!

I'm very sorry to hear about your issues with the WD Blue. 🙁 I'd check the connections and BIOS settings again as @i7Baby suggested.
Another way to determine what is causing this problem is to plug the drive in another computer and see how it will be recognized there.
If the problem persist, I strongly recommend getting in touch with our tech support. Your HDD should still be within the warranty period, since you build the system in June. You should be able to send out an RMA request and get a replacement product from us.
Here are the contacts: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=03sUqm
How to RMA your product: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=IA8mLd

Hope this was helpful! Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

I will get in contact with support and see if it is necessary that I get a new hard drive. Thank you for the reply.

 

[johnbl]

what version of windows are you running?
you might want to run rammap.exe and empty the standby list
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff700229.aspx

windows will track the programs that the OS has loaded, it will preload these into unused RAM as a standby list in case you want to run the programs. If any of these programs are on a "bad" spot on the hard drive they will take a long time to load because windows will retry with each error. The net effect is your drive is queued up with things to load even if you are not running an active program.

windows 8.x will even try to scan and fix these bad sectors on a hard drive when your system goes idle for 5 minutes.
it will find a "weak" sector, try to read it over and over until it gets a corrected read. it then will move the data and mark the sector as bad. Windows 8 does this because people do not take the time to do a full format of drives because it takes too long. Windows 7 will not do this. People often just go back to windows 7 and never realize why there was a problem.

I built my computer last June and around 4 months ago, my HDD started acting up. Every time I start up my computer, open an program or game, or sometimes even just while sitting idle, my disk usage will spike to 100%. When checking task manager, most of the programs that are supposedly using alot of disk usage are at most using 1.5 mb/s. Usually, the task titled "system" is at the top and using the most usage. While my disk usage is at 100%, my computer will slow down and lock up. It has even crashed a few times and after automatically rebooting, my hard drive is not listed in the BIOS. I have to do a complete restart to get my hard drive to appear in the BIOS. I have used a couple programs like HD tune pro and Data Lifeguard to check my hard drive, and none of them say that there are any problems. I am unsure if this is purely a problem with my hard drive or if there is a problem with something else, like my operating system. Please let me know if there is anything that I should do or check.

Spec:
AMD FX-8320
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. M5A97 R2.0
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 722MHz
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (EVGA)

 

[fzabkar]

@MattY213, I see a lot of problems with WD drives when used in combination with AMD's SB850 and SB950 southbridges. Perhaps you could try installing the drive's OPT1 jumper, even if only for troubleshooting purposes. This will reduce the SATA link rate.

 

[MattY213]

what version of windows are you running?
you might want to run rammap.exe and empty the standby list
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff700229.aspx

windows will track the programs that the OS has loaded, it will preload these into unused RAM as a standby list in case you want to run the programs. If any of these programs are on a "bad" spot on the hard drive they will take a long time to load because windows will retry with each error. The net effect is your drive is queued up with things to load even if you are not running an active program.

windows 8.x will even try to scan and fix these bad sectors on a hard drive when your system goes idle for 5 minutes.
it will find a "weak" sector, try to read it over and over until it gets a corrected read. it then will move the data and mark the sector as bad. Windows 8 does this because people do not take the time to do a full format of drives because it takes too long. Windows 7 will not do this. People often just go back to windows 7 and never realize why there was a problem.

I built my computer last June and around 4 months ago, my HDD started acting up. Every time I start up my computer, open an program or game, or sometimes even just while sitting idle, my disk usage will spike to 100%. When checking task manager, most of the programs that are supposedly using alot of disk usage are at most using 1.5 mb/s. Usually, the task titled "system" is at the top and using the most usage. While my disk usage is at 100%, my computer will slow down and lock up. It has even crashed a few times and after automatically rebooting, my hard drive is not listed in the BIOS. I have to do a complete restart to get my hard drive to appear in the BIOS. I have used a couple programs like HD tune pro and Data Lifeguard to check my hard drive, and none of them say that there are any problems. I am unsure if this is purely a problem with my hard drive or if there is a problem with something else, like my operating system. Please let me know if there is anything that I should do or check.

Spec:
AMD FX-8320
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. M5A97 R2.0
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 722MHz
931GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 (SATA)
2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 (EVGA)

I have a windows 8.1 OEM installed on my computer right now. I ran ram map like you said and I will continue to monitor my hard drive. So is there anyway to keep windows 8.1 from continually scanning the weak sectors or should I just go back to windows 7?

 

[i7Baby]

What Windows 8 is doing is a good thing. Keep using Windows 8.

Try changing the sata cable to see if the cable was the problem. If its not then get a replacement drive pronto - so you can get data off it before it crashes.

 

[MattY213]

Ok, so in the last day or so, my computer has blue screened about 4-5 times. After booting up my computer I open task manager to view my disk usage. It will hang around 99-100% for about 5 minutes before lowering. If at any time during its high usage on start-up I open any program, like google chrome or steam, the computer will sometimes blue screen and restart. I noticed that the processes "system" and "service host: local service" have the highest usage on start-up, even though they are only using less than 10 mb/s. I am at a loss at this point and am going to replace the hard drive. Hopefully this issue is only with the hard drive and getting a new one fixes it.

 

[fzabkar]

I would use MHDD (DOS) or HDDScan (Windows) to perform a full surface scan of the drive. This will tell you if there are any "slow" sectors, ie those that require one or more retries.

The OPT1 jumper would isolate SATA communications problems.

Jumper Settings Info Sheet - Western Digital:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

 

[MattY213]

I would use MHDD (DOS) or HDDScan (Windows) to perform a full surface scan of the drive. This will tell you if there are any "slow" sectors, ie those that require one or more retries.

The OPT1 jumper would isolate SATA communications problems.

Jumper Settings Info Sheet - Western Digital:
http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001037.pdf

I still have yet to try the OPT1 jumper, but my computer blue screened again while doing a surface scan through HDDScan. I am going to try another full surface scan and then try and isolate SATA communication problems. Thank you for the feedback.

 

[i7Baby]

Just replace the hard drive. Before you lose the chance of getting any data from it.