One of my hard drives is always at 100%. Is this normal?

[Luke2468]

Hi, just recently I've noticed that one of my hard drives is constantly at 100% but sometimes spikes way down then back up. Now I haven't noticed this since when I'm in the task manager it usually shows "Disk Usage" 50 or 49% but I just recently have clicked on the performance tab and now see the drive with windows on it is at 100% and the other drive is at 0%. Now I don't know if this is normal or not since I'm not necessarily getting really slow but times but should i be concerned? The process in "Resource Monitor" thats' taking up the most of my disk usage seems to be "System". Thanks for any help and both of these drives are WD 1 TB Blues at 7200rpm

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

Yeah, that isn't normal. But there have been a lot of threads with the same problem recently. Are you running Windows 7? If so, the most common culprit has been a stuck Windows Update background process. The one that checks for updates. You can try "net stop wuauserv" from the command prompt to see if disk usage drops back to normal. If it does, see if you can get Windows Update to run. Grab the security patches, which includes the latest version of the Windows Update Client. If it seems to get stuck, like going 20+ minutes with no progress, you can try:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3136677/microsoft-windows/how-to-speed-up-windows-7-update-scans-forever.html

If it isn't Windows Update and "System" is the highest disk process, it's usually something like search indexing or Superfetch going haywire. Windows Defender can do it too, but I think it gets its own process name. Another possibility is that the drive is starting to go bad, if it isn't any of the above try running the utility recommended by the drive manufacturer for a self test.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

If you're running Windows 10 then the latest update, KB3201845, seems to be causing this issue for a bunch of users.

 

[Luke2468]

Yeah, that isn't normal. But there have been a lot of threads with the same problem recently. Are you running Windows 7? If so, the most common culprit has been a stuck Windows Update background process. The one that checks for updates. You can try "net stop wuauserv" from the command prompt to see if disk usage drops back to normal. If it does, see if you can get Windows Update to run. Grab the security patches, which includes the latest version of the Windows Update Client. If it seems to get stuck, like going 20+ minutes with no progress, you can try:

http://www.infoworld.com/article/3136677/microsoft-windows/how-to-speed-up-windows-7-update-scans-forever.html

If it isn't Windows Update and "System" is the highest disk process, it's usually something like search indexing or Superfetch going haywire. Windows Defender can do it too, but I think it gets its own process name. Another possibility is that the drive is starting to go bad, if it isn't any of the above try running the utility recommended by the drive manufacturer for a self test.

I have windows 10 and it seems like all of my friends are having this problem as well...so im not sure what to do at this point

 

[Luke2468]

If you're running Windows 10 then the latest update, KB3201845, seems to be causing this issue for a bunch of users.

Funny you say that, all of my friends are having this problem as well...is there a forum about this update anywheres?

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

Saw a Reddit thread just now pointing at WPR (Windows Performance Recorder) as the culprit. They suggest using an Admin command prompt and "WPR -cancel" to stop the service until next reboot.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/5hdalv/cumulative_update_for_windows_10_au_and_windows/

 

[Colif]

See bottom fix on this page to find a permanent fix: http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3267507/100-disc-usage-system-service.html

 

[Luke2468]

Saw a Reddit thread just now pointing at WPR (Windows Performance Recorder) as the culprit. They suggest using an Admin command prompt and "WPR -cancel" to stop the service until next reboot.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/5hdalv/cumulative_update_for_windows_10_au_and_windows/

Okay so this is the cause of the problem thank you so much. Do you think this will ever get fixed in future updates?

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

I would expect so, but the timeline is uncertain. It's cropped up several times in past updates and not always the due to same cause. The automatic updating system has traded one set of problems, people who never update, for this type of problem, insufficiently tested patches. That puts the onus squarely on MS to get it right before pushing it out to everyone, and the past year hasn't exactly been confidence inspiring.