100% disk Usage

Question

Hello,

So, for a while I my disk utilization has been very high. I've reset windows about 3 times because of that reason and tried many, many solutions that all failed. So far on my current install it's not as severe as the previous reinstalls but it still sucks and is very annoying. It mainly happens whenever I install, uninstall, or update something or it can happen randomly sometimes. For example, whenever I update Fortnite, my read and write speeds will be very low because some random apps, Epic Games, and "System" would be utilizing all my disk, but it also happens with Steam, and just anything.

On my current Windows install I've tried doing a SFC scan and a DISM restore health using command prompt but that fixed the problem and if I do it again it says that it can't find any corruption. I've tried disabling write caching on the SSD from device manager and later tried disabling MSIS but both of those just made it worse. So far, the only thing that might've helped if using TRIM, but I don't know for sure

My SSD health is at 100% according to CrystalDiskInfo so I don't know if there's anything wrong with the hardware.

Thank you,

Kazi Islam

Answer 1

Hello kazi,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

Disk usage is 100%, which usually means that your disk is always in read and write state. If this happens only when you install, uninstall, or update something, then I think it's a normal read/write occupancy of the disk and it's not a big problem. But if a phenomenon occurs randomly, then you do have to consider the possibility of hard disk failure.

The use of software to detect the health status of the hard disk is for reference only, if you really need to monitor the hard disk, then it should be handed over to a dedicated hard disk detection organization.

After reading all of your posts, I know that you have made quite a few attempts to try to fix this problem. But if you'd like some more advice, I recommend trying a clean boot which starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It can be used to determine whether a background service or program is interfering or causing a problem. 

These steps of "clean boot" might look complicated at first glance. However, to avoid any trouble for you, please follow them in order and step-by-step.

After Clean Boot is complete, perform certain tasks independently and observe disk usage.

As a simple example, playing Fortnite, since Clean Boot has been implemented, all relevant Steam processes theoretically won't start, but Epic Games is still definitely in the background. Please observe whether the game flow, and disk usage.

If you are not experiencing any problems, then I suspect that the problem may be caused by too many processes starting from the boot, you can try to optimize the boot option.

But if it's obvious to you that your disk is 100% occupied even when you're doing something small, make it a priority to determine what process is consuming so much resources and find it so you can identify the culprit.

If you notice coming directly from System, then I recommend that you back up all your important data and use the installation media to install Windows all over again:

Reinstall Windows with the installation media - Microsoft Support

 

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist