Windows 10: Performance Issues and Drive Error + Drive scanning gets stuck

Hello everyone,

(Long story short: my laptop has been acting very slow lately and there seems to be a problem with my drive. Scanning the drive for errors, and chkdsk, are both getting stuck.)

For the last couple of weeks I have been having performance issues on my 2 year old Acer gaming laptop. The disk usage would go up to 100% (this had been going on for a while, but not as persistently and not being that much of an issue) and the laptop would become extremely slow. I would have to wait a long while for anything to open. But this is not just specific to the 100% disk usage because recently even when it's low, the performance would be affected. After trying to google the problem a few times (and trying to turn off Windows Search and other fixes for disk usage that didn't work) I came across a post that said deleting Bitdefender fixed his/her problem. Now I had just renewed my Bitdefender subscription a couple of days earlier and did not want the money to go to waste (and my bandwidth is limited so I did not want to have to re-download if deleting didn't fix the issue) so I contacted Bitdefender about this to see if there's a way around uninstalling. After sending them an "autoruns log" and another Bitdefender specific log, their technicians suggested that I scan drive for errors (or chkdsk), then after that System File Checker and DISM command. They said it could be the beginning of a hard-drive failure because \Device\Harddisk0\DR0, has a bad block. Bitdefender does not seem to be causing the issue.


The problem here is that chkdsk (both offline AND online) keeps getting stuck so I cannot complete it. It would go on normally for the first 10-20 minutes, then it would reach a point about 1/4 of the way (or 8% in the offline chkdsk) where it would stop advancing and the estimated time keeps getting higher and higher. When I leave it overnight the estimated time would reach 19-20 hours. I need my laptop every day so I cannot really wait more than the 9-10 hours that I keep it running during the night. According to some forums I checked out, it's not even supposed to take that long in Windows 10. The laptop is practically unusable because of how slow it becomes during online error checking, so to properly use it I'd have to stop the process. And I have been waiting for a day where I do not need it so I can run the process for longer than that, but I'm really worried about what this could mean until then.

System File Checker is not even working and gives me the following message (even in safe mode): Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation. I'm guessing this might be because I need to fix the drive errors first.


Unplugging the laptop seems to fix this problem temporarily. When I unplug, whatever had been clogging the performance seems to clear up after a few seconds. After it does, I plug it back in and the issue would only resurface about an hour or less later. However, I can play games like Witcher 3 and Overwatch normally, even if the issue is ongoing.


Another thing that has been happening along with this issue is notifications to (1) Scan Drive Errors (which I try and gets stuck; I get this notification very often, especially after I unplug the laptop and the performance clears up) and (2) to update virus protection whenever I turn on the laptop, even though Bitdefender is up to date. This kinda makes me suspicious of Bitdefender again, so I will try to uninstall soon if it really could cause such massive performance and drive issues, although that seems unlikely.


I did not expect to be facing such issues after only 2 years of buying this laptop. I paid a lot of money for it and I really can't afford a new one any time soon. Sorry for the long post but I'm very worried and I'd be extremely grateful for any input about this.

:)

 

Scanning and Repairing Drive Stuck; Hard Drive Corrupted?

This windows 10 issues are so insane I am considering switching to a Mac.

Seriously, get your stuff together already.

 

Scanning and Repairing Drive Stuck; Hard Drive Corrupted?

Hi,

Sorry for delayed response.

If issue persists try to create new user profile as an administrator and see if issue persists in new user profile. For creating new user profile you may refer to the steps provided below.

• 
  Press Windows key + R
  
• 
  Type control userpasswords2 and click OK
  
• 
  Click on add under users tab
  
• 
  Click the option, "Sign-in without a Microsoft account
  
• 
  Click on Local account
  
• 
  Choose a name for the account
  
• 
  Add password if you want to
  
• 
  Apply and click OK.
  

For more information you may refer to the article mentioned below and see if it helps.

Create a local user account in Windows 10

Do keep us updated.

Regards,

 

If it were mine, I would upgrade to an SSD and start with a fresh clean install of Windows 10.

 

Well I'm assuming that would be pretty expensive though, no? I'm a college student at the moment so I can't really afford it, I'm even worried about replacing the HDD

edit: on second thought, I might be able to arrange it, if it's around 200$ for 1 TB and I couldn't fix the current mess

 

Download and install seatools for windows. Perform SMART, short and long generic and report the results in the forum.

SeaTools | Seagate

Open administrative command prompt and type or copy and paste these commands:

1) winver (in the pop up view the windows version and build and post into the forum)

2) sfc /scannow

3) dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth

4) dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

5) dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

6) chkdsk /scan

When you complete the above 6 steps in administrative command prompt, right click on the top of the box and left click on edit, then select all. Then right click on the top bar of the box again > left click edit, left click copy, then paste into the forum.

 

Thanks! Below are the results from seatools. Long Generic went on for about three hours and failed. I will complete the cmd commands tomorrow and post the results (although SFC will probably give me "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation" again, which happened even in safe mode)

SMART - Started 6/4/2017 12:28:09 AM
SMART - Pass 6/4/2017 12:28:14 AM
Short Generic - Started 6/4/2017 12:29:36 AM
Short Generic - Pass 6/4/2017 12:32:29 AM
Long Generic - Started 6/4/2017 12:32:46 AM
Long Generic - FAIL 6/4/2017 3:18:55 AM

 

Your HDD is failing, buy a new one. The warranty on a HDD is a few years, usually around 2-3 years.
OK you are unlucky with that particular drive, but that's how it goes.
It could also be some charger/battery problem.

It does not matter how much money you paid for the Laptop, HDD drives do fail after a time which is very much a variable.

 

This page:
Laptops | View All Our Laptops | Acer Solutions

Shows the ACER VN7-791Gs as all coming with an SSD and a HDD.

Here's general disassembly instructions:
Acer Aspire V Nitro VN7-591G Disassembly and SSD, RAM, HDD upgrade guide | MyFixGuide.com

Depending on what size SSD it has now, I would get a 256 GB (they are actually 240 GB) SSD, and install and run Windows 10 from the SSD. Then tackle replacing the HDD for extra storage when you can afford it. A 240 GB SSD will cost $80 on up - with $120 being about average. Just make sure to get the M.2 type that has the same pin configuration as you have (which should be shown in the link above). It looks like this, M.2 type, long and narrow, "half" screw hole on one end, 2 notches in the pins on the other end:

 

At some time you may purchase a new laptop and have an old one with a HD that has abnormal technical finding on seatools, HD tune, crystal boot etc. None of these tools can give you the estimated time to your HD failure. So if you no longer need to use the files/applications on this HD you can use it as a DVD player for your television etc. Just have all your files backed up and know that you at some point may have a HD failure where you cannot boot, etc.

For many years I have been using an old laptop that has a short generic failure using seatools for windows. It has always had SMART tests pass. Having other computers I don't need to fix this one. I've ran chkdsk /x /f /r on it several times to make sure that old and new files will no longer go to bad blocks/sectors. The computer is primarily used as a HDMI player for a television and from time to time is used for internet access. No longer do I save critical files to this HD. At some point you may no longer want to spend good money into a product that has an old CPU, graphics card, motherboard, network card etc. This computer cannot connect with wireless ac as it has an old card. It can never connect at 5GHz. So check all of the other components of your laptop and make sure that once you have spent the money to replace the HD that you will be happy with the computer.

 

Version 1607 OS Build 14393.1198

So SFC as expected didn't work, DISM didn't work either and chkdsk is taking an awfully long time. It's been around 30 hours since it started and at the moment it's in stage 2: 71% (it was 64% about 8 hours ago), Total 4% and ETA: 585 so I think I might just cancel in a few hours so I can properly use my laptop and maybe just buy another HDD

 

My laptop's great when this is not happening so I think it would definitely be worth it to put some money into it, given that I can afford it

 

Apparently it's a Lite-on 60GB SSD. I think I remember that Windows was on it (I had no idea it was an SSD in the first place and had forgotten all about it, as I can only ever see the HDD drive C in This PC). I just opened Disk Management to check it out and all I found was the 1 TB HDD partitioned into 4 parts.

But either way, wouldn't it be better to just replace the HDD first if it's the one creating the problems, before it fails?

 

That was an incredible number of chkdsk repairs.

There are pro and con for drives.

The pro of a HD is that they are inexpensive and can store a lot of data.
The pro of a SSD is faster boot. And you can knock around the computer more in a backpack etc. and worry less about damage.
The SSD is the better choice now as the cloud is another option to store files.

 

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm getting my hard drive replaced tomorrow. After I canceled the chkdsk and restarted the computer, I could not access it anymore as it was stuck in the "preparing automatic repair" loop so that was a breaking point. I hope my data is still retrievable though because, ironically, the laptop seems to also have corrupted my external hard drive that has all my backed up important data on it.