Windows 10 100% Disk Usage EXCEPT in Safe Mode

[hoshiki]

Hi all,

I have been putting up with my laptop being extremely slow and laggy for way too long now, to the point where it feels almost unusable for me. I am running Windows 10 on an HP Envy m7-n109dx.
In Task Manager, Disk Usage is always at 100%, with very little to no actual utilization by any of the items listed in task manager. I open Resource Monitor and the services that show when clicking Total change all the time.

I have tried ALL of the following already with no luck:

⦁ Resetting the entire OS and deleting all my files
⦁ Disabling Superfetch
⦁ Disabling Windows Search
⦁ Checked HDD health with CrystalDiskInfo and it shows health as good
⦁ Check S.M.A.R.T status of HDD- no issues
⦁ No StorAHCI.sys exists on my PC
⦁ Clean boot

The only thing that seems to have worked so far is booting into Safe Mode.

Now that I know the 100 disk usage goes away with Safe Mode, is there anyway I can start to tell what the culprit is?

PC Specs:

⦁ 16GB RAM
⦁ 64 bit OS/x64 processor
⦁ Intel Core i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50 GHz
⦁ 1 TB HDD Toshiba MQ01ABD100

Thank you in advance!

 

[Colif]

Do you have latest BIOS? it could be a driver since it works fine in safe mode.

Have you run this? https://www8.hp.com/au/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/hpsupport.html

try a clean boot and see if its still the same. read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or it may not boot right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

what that might tell us is if its a startup program causing the usage. If it is reduced, over a few startups, re add all the services and programs you stopped before to find cuprit

 

[SkyNetRising]

is there anyway I can start to tell what the culprit is?

Use Resource Monitor.
Open Disk tab and look for Disk Activity section (not Processes with Disk Activity).
Order Disk Activity section by column Total.
Image column will show process name, File column will show file being read/written. That gives pretty good idea about what is happening there. You can post screenshot here.

Spoiler

Resource Monitor looks like this:

 

[hoshiki]

Do you have latest BIOS? it could be a driver since it works fine in safe mode.

Have you run this? https://www8.hp.com/au/en/campaigns/hpsupportassistant/hpsupport.html

try a clean boot and see if its still the same. read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or it may not boot right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

what that might tell us is if its a startup program causing the usage. If it is reduced, over a few startups, re add all the services and programs you stopped before to find cuprit

Hi Colif, thank you for your reply.

My BIOS is currently Insyde F.35, 3/4/2016. From what I saw on the HP website, looks like there is an update from 2018. I am a bit hesitant about updating the BIOS though.

I have tried the clean boot already and it still booted up slowly and showed 100% disk usage. It seems to be the worst upon startup/booting, with and without clean boot. After some time, the disk usage tends to go down. But this sometimes takes a while.

I have a feeling it may be a driver issue as well. Do you know if there is a way to tell which driver(s) may be the cause of this issue?

 

[hoshiki]

is there anyway I can start to tell what the culprit is?

Use Resource Monitor.
Open Disk tab and look for Disk Activity section (not Processes with Disk Activity).
Order Disk Activity section by column Total.
Image column will show process name, File column will show file being read/written. That gives pretty good idea about what is happening there. You can post screenshot here.

Spoiler

Resource Monitor looks like this:

Hi SkyNetRising, thank you for your reply.

I have been using Resource Monitor and checking disk activity frequently. Here are a couple screenshots. The activity tends to change though. It's usually never just one process at the top. I mainly see things like System or svchost.exe
The 100% disk usage usually is the worst upon Windows starting up, and then can take a while to go away:

 

[SkyNetRising]

It looks like webcam, dropbox and mcafee antivirus is causing most of disk activity there.

Your system would benefit, if you upgraded to SSD.

 

[samyakjain222]

Hi,
Can you post a photo of task manager with disc usage arranged in descending order. That may help with what program is eating away the disc. As i dont trust resource monitor much

 

[Colif]

Hey, i am having the same problem and i know this was 2 years ago but did you find a solution? thank you in advance

I suggest you make a new thread with as much info as possible. I am going to delete this post shortly as it is an old thread and we swapped forum software between then and now and he won't get the notification. No one else will look unless they in here.