Windows 10: Disc access very slow

I have an HP Envy i7 laptop which came with a 1TB hard drive.
As there was space to add a second drive I added a 500GB drive.
In addition I added a 320GB drive in the DVD slot (using a dvd/disc converter cartridge).

I have recently noticed that disc access in Explorer has become really slow (seems to think about it for 10 - 15 secs sometimes) and loading programmes seems to take longer too.

Could this be as a result of adding the extra discs?
Is there any way to resolve this and get back to normal without removing the discs?

:)

 

New windows 10 Dell computer very slow. How is disc clean up performed with windows 10

<Original title: Disc clean up>

New windows 10 Dell computer very slow. How is disc clean up performed with windows 10

 

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Hi, have you checked the SMART parameters of your disks? (E.g. Passmark offers freeware.. plenty of others).

Run chkdsk on each disk from an elevated command prompt
(Windows key + X, click Command Prompt (Admin).

If you want to specifically check the speed of access to each disk, please see:
Hard Drive Benchmark - How to Run a Hard Drive Speed Test

Have you checked your task manager for excessive CPU/RAM/Disk use?

As you don't want to remove the disks, you could try (but it's not 100% equivalent to removing them) sthg like this:
http://www.windows8core.com/how-to-d...n-windows-8rt/

(Ok it's Win 8 but should be very similar and you can research further).

Presumably you are sure your system is clean of viruses.

 

Thanks
I ran CrystalDiskMark on all three discs and here are the results





However the problem I have is not the read/write access - it is the time it takes to initially access a drive or folder in explorer. For example if I click on the 'C' drive, explorer thinks about it for anything between 4 and 10 seconds before displaying the content.

Also - If I right click a file or directory it can take a few seconds before the right click menu appears.

Once I have managed to 'right click' a copy 'copy' and I right click a destination disc or directory and eventually am able to 'paste' the copying is fast.

So the problem is more 'seek and find' rather than 'read/write'.

 

Pewe:

Most hard drives came with HP are in the 5400 RPM range. A faster HD will run at 7200 RPM and of course SSD.
Let's look at what you have first. Can you download and run Speccy from piriform.com and show us what drives and SMART attributes are.

Speccy - Standard

We need more info!

 

The figures are encouraging ( did say 'if you want to'), and I understand what you're saying and the other things I mentioned will be more helpful in eliminating basic possibilities... thanks. Basically we're in the dark, so need to get past basics as we're not in front of your laptop.

We have to start somewhere with relatively easy info.. and usually in my experience, whilst setting out down a diagnostic path with good intent, the steps just get too much and the user just reinstalls (for example).

So, for example, I could just blindly almost at random suggest a sequence aimed at repairing Windows, without having a clue whether that's the right sort of thing to be thinking of doing.

But I'm guessing you've got some extraneous background activity using up CPU or disk time, unless you have an incipient drive failure, hence the SMART params.

 

Thanks Guys
Here is the smart info from speccy for the 3 drives.

 

Ok, can you please post task manager screenshots? Tks

Then try a clean boot, and advise if there's any change in your symptoms.
How to perform a Clean boot in Windows 10 - TechNet Articles - United States (English) - TechNet Wiki

 

Ok - here's the taskmanager screen shots

















One question.

If I do a clean boot, do I have to reverse the process to re-boot again normally - or will the settings be forgotten on next boot?

Thanks

 

Take the disk out of the DVD slot. The culprit could be the BIOS.

 

How long after you changed the disk configuration did you notice things slowing down?

Clean boot: yes, startups and services will be disabled until you reverse the changes.
You could set a restore point before you clean boot, and use the restore point to reverse the changes if you wish.

I can't see anything really significant in the task manager- surprised how much RAM Dashlane takes.
You don't have a problem with system and compressed memory in terms of CPU use, but the RAM used is very large. (I've 8Gb, 32% used, and s&c mem =3.2Mb)

As whs says, removing the disks might actually reveal more.

 

Thanks guys - I appreciate all your help.

That seems to have done the trick - things appear back to normal again - thanks.
@dalchina - thanks for your assistance.

 

So if the DVD caddy was the culprit and it was affecting the bios I guess there is no way to get it working properly?

 

The only way to fix it would be changing the BIOS which I would not know how to do.