Windows 10: Hard Drive at 100% Active, Even with Transfer Rate at 0

Hi there,


Recently my computer has been experiencing slow downs and occasional program freezes. This happens mostly when opening the file explorer, or trying to access files on this drive. This seems to have occurred after an update, but this may or may not be related. The drive has also been making a constant rhythmic ticking sound - no grinding or slapping. Just a normal hard drive noise, but at a constant pulse, no matter if it's being used.


Specifically, my D: drive is constantly running at 100% active time, no matter the transfer rate. Even if the transfer rate is at 0.


When opening the task manager, and selecting the performance tab, it reveals that this is my primary files drive an HDD, which is separate from the SDD on which my OS is stored. Running chkdsk isn't revealing any problems. No processes in the task manager actually are showing significant disk usage.


Help?

:)

 

Windows 10 Freezes; SSD's transfer rate goes to 100%

Hi,

I am experiencing the same exact problem.

• Dell Latitude E5520
• Windows 10 Version 1607 (OS Build 14393.953)
• Seagate Momentus XT 500GB (Booting Drive, Disk 0, based on combination 4GB SSD and the rest is HDD).
  • The last few months it was freezing briefly (within a minute or so) and then unfreezes. All activities that do not need to access the drive can be done normally while frozen up to some point.
• Crucial MX300 SSD 525GB Booting Drive (Disk 0), recently bought to replace the above 'aging' Seagate.
  • Freeze after a few operations and remains frozen until Power Recycled.
    
  • Disk Active Time spikes to 100% while Disk Transfer Rate is 0 or minimal.
  • All activities that do not need to access the drive can be done normally while frozen up to some point.

• I have not tried replacing the Microsoft generic SATA driver yet.

Hope the above helps pin-pointing the issues. I would greatly appreciate assistance in how to replace the SATA driver, if there is no cure from Microsoft yet.

Thank you in advance!

UPDATE:

Applied KB4015438. Same issue:

• Freeze after a few operations and remains frozen until Power Recycled.
• Disk Active Time spikes to 100% while Disk Transfer Rate is 0 or minimal.
• All activities that do not need to access the drive can be done normally while frozen up to some point.

UPDATE (03/27/2017):

Applied KB4016635. Issue persists:

• Freeze after a few operations and remains frozen until Power Recycled.
• Disk Active Time spikes to 100% while Disk Transfer Rate is 0 or minimal.
• All activities that do not need to access the drive can be done normally while frozen up to some point.

Replaced Microsoft Generic SATA Driver to OEM (Intel) Driver. System has been stable since 03/26/2017 15:10.

 

Disk Active time 100% Disk transfer rate 0

This is a problem I've seen reported countless times, on Microsoft support sites and elsewhere. Task Manager shows "Disk Active time 100% Disk transfer rate 0", and everything that's running on the computer freezes, although sometimes you can switch windows,
or even perform some operations within a window, but other times
everything freezes, including the mouse pointer. It usually lasts for 30 or 60 seconds, but sometimes it goes on for several minutes. Then it stops and everything goes back to normal, including Disk active time and Disk transfer rate.

It happens regardless of the apps I'm running or the activities I'm doing. I've even seen it happen with no user apps running at all - no browser, no file manager, nothing but background stuff. It happens every single day, regardless of whether there has
been a Windows update installed.

Microsoft gave me a fix for this problem a week ago, but it didn't work. Here are the steps I followed:

at admin command line prompt:

• Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
• dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
• reboot
• find driver file for Intel(R) 9 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
  • C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\iaStorA.sys
• Details tab from Properties window for controller
  • Device instance path:
    • PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9C83&SUBSYS_06B01028&REV_03\3&11583659&0&FA
• find registry key for disk controller
  • Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_9C83&SUBSYS_06B01028&REV_03\3&11583659&0&FA\Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties
  • change MSISupported from 1 to 0
• reboot

The instructions I was given include this for Step 4: If you see “StorAHCI.sys” in the list, you are running the inbox driver. But my driver is iaStorA.sys, so maybe this
fix doesn't even apply to me.

After doing all of the above, twice, I still have the problem. I've seen this now over a period of about three years, on two completely different laptops, one a Toshiba running Windows 8.1 and currently on a Dell running Windows 10. I also have a Thinkpad
for work that runs W7, and I've never seen it happen on that machine. It got so bad on the Toshiba that I ended up discarding it, after spending countless hours trying to fix it.

I've also tried all the fixes I've found on the web, e.g. disable superfetch, disable BITS, add write permissions to Skype and the browser. Nothing I've found so far has helped. I also reverted Windows back to build 1703. That didn't help either.

 

Slow internal hard drive transfer rates

Hi,

Please be informed that data transfer rates from hard drive to a computer or to other hard drive depends on several factors like size for data that being transferred; other tasks running in the background; RAM etc. You may install all pending Windows updates.
Updates are additions to software that can help prevent or fix problems, improve how your computer works, or enhance your computing experience.

Also follow the steps to run System Maintenance troubleshooter
on the computer:

• Type “Control Panel” on the search box.
• Click on Troubleshooting.
• Click on View all option on the left side of the Windows.
• Click on System Maintenance option.
• Click on Next and follow the onscreen instructions to troubleshoot the issue.

Do let us know the performance of the computer. Thank you.