Windows 10: Unusual hard disk behavior

The last week or so my laptop has had a lot of unusual disk activity. It used to be behave such that unless there was a background scan running or an app was actively being loaded, the hard drive was idle. Now it's constantly making noises as if it's running. It will do be idle for a few seconds, followed by a couple seconds of activity, then idle again. This goes on for hours. Also, the hard drive will randomly shut off. I can hear it stop completely, and it won't resume running until something needs to read from the disk.

None of this seems normal to me at all and is not how the drive used to behave. The SMART system values all look normal. I've attached a screenshot showing the constant spikes of activity followed by inactivity.

The shutting itself off completely while the computer is running every couple of minutes is what concerns me most. Is this a sign of a failing drive or something else?





:)

 

Unnatural behavior of hard disk.

I don't know what is happening, I've two partitions (c drive and d drive) of the hard disk . C drive has 155 GB and D drive has 299 GB.

I've windows 10 installed on C drive.

C drive has 18 GB free space .The problem is I've no heavy contents on the disk which could occupy so much memory. When I check from the c drive property it shows me only 18 GB free but when I check inside the disk there are no huge files.

The most dramatic part is the memory always fluctuates i:e now 18 GB after some time 17 GB after sometime 22 GB.

I don't understand what is happening. In this way, even I have memory space available but it is showing me full (nearly) full..

I need help desperately. Please help me out.

 

Unnatural behavior of hard disk.

Hello Biswaranjan,

Thank you for posting your query in Microsoft Community.

We do understand your concern and we will be happy to help you regarding this.

I request you to try the below methods:

Method 1:

I request you to use the disk cleanup.

Delete files using Disk Cleanup

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...nup#delete-files-using-disk-cleanup=windows-8

(Applicable for Windows 10)

Method 2:

I would suggest you to Run maintenance task and check if it helps.

The Run maintenance task checks issues that might slow down your computer's performance, such as how many users are currently logged on to the computer and whether multiple programs are running at
the same time.

Follow the below steps:

• Right click on the Start menu.
• Select Control Panel.
• Select Troubleshooting.
• Click on Run maintenance task under
  System and Security.

Method 3:

I also request you to defragment your hard disk

• Open Disk Defragmenter by clicking the Start
  button. In the search box, type Disk Defragmenter, and then, in the list of results, click
  Disk Defragmenter.
• Under Current status, select the disk you want to defragment.
• To determine if the disk needs to be defragmented or not, click
  Analyze disk. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
• Once Windows is finished analyzing the disk, you can check the percentage of fragmentation on the disk in the
  Last Run column. If the number is above 10%, you should defragment the disk.
• Click Defragment disk. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

However, you will face slight changes in the free space due to temporary files. But It will not show the difference from 18GB to 22GB.

I hope this helps you. If you have any further queries, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help you.

Thank you.

 

Hi, can you post a screenshot of just your task manager, organised by highest disk usage (click the Disk tab) when you consider disk use is high?

Do you recall any significant change or update made about a week ago? (You can check logs and Window update history).

Thanks

 

If you can hear the hard drive starting/restarting/stopping I suspect you are going to need a new hard drive soon. Make sure you back it up as soon as possible.

 

Your priority should be to make a full backup. One easy way - and this allows you to replace your hard drive then recreate the partitions on it so you can get back to where you were as quickly and easily as possible is to create a disk image.

E.g. Macrium Reflect or Aomei Backupper (free versions are ok) + create their boot disk - you'll need it! - and large enough external storage medium.

The images are compressed, so you might be lucky and get away with about 60% of the total size of your data as an absolute minimum. But for routine use, allow 2-3 times bigger than your max anticipated data size, minimum.

 

I think laptop drives spindown sooner and alot more frequently compared to desktops. The sound of it "shutting down" might be normal if its the drive spinning down and parking the heads.

Open the resource monitor on task manager and see which process is causing activity on the drive.

 

Turning to the disk spinning down:
You may find this of interest- compare your settings.
Note "Turn off hard disk after" times

 

I have power options set to never turn the hard disk off. So far the drive hasn't been shutting off, but the constant activity has continued.

This is my task manager processes sorted by most disk activity:





I also ran the Western Digital Diagnostics app and it passed the tests as you can see here:





As suggested I'm in the process of backing up my drive, but I would certainly prefer it not die on me. *Sad

 

That, as you know, looks perfectly ok.

So, if we assume for now that your HDD isn't about to die, perhaps what's left is a process of elimination.
Try a clean boot.. if the symptoms disappear, then enable progressively until they recur.

If no change with a clean boot, try safe mode.

 

Power options don't override hw spindown/idle settings. The resource monitor window under the performance tab gives more details.

 

Is this the screen you think would be more helpful?





It looks to me that an Avast Anti-Virus related process could be the cost for the weird disk activity.

EDIT: Actually this next screen shot seems to show "system" as being responsible for it:

 

It could be worth seeing what happens if you disable Avast. Avast has been reported previously as associated with an entirely different issue (which is no justification in itself to suspect it here) and a search for "avast disk use "Windows 10"" does show up quite a few reports.

That falls within what I suggested- a process of elimination.

Question remains, what changed a week ago?

 

I uninstalled Avast and switched to Windows Defender for the time being. Unfortunately that did not cure the weird HDD activity. You can clearly see the spikes every couple of seconds in this screen shot:





That pattern continues indefinitely until the PC is shut down.

These are the apps I've installed since the first of the year:





I don't see anything there that would cause constant disk activity, but I do think narrowing down possible causes is a good idea. I'm certainly open to suggestions. *Smile Thanks for your help so far.

 

Hi, I remain concerned about your hard drive as previously commented... I'm not aware of mine making noises.

If you have a spare drive you could clone yours onto, or put a copy of the partition(s) containing your OS and programs onto you could determine if you have a drive issue. You can do that using disk imaging software (remember I recommended a backup - disk imaging should be used routinely anyway, so here's an opportunity, if you've never done it, to try out the process of replacing a drive this way.. But it does take some time.


I've not seen you try this yet..
"So, if we assume for now that your HDD isn't about to die, perhaps what's left is a process of elimination.
Try a clean boot.. if the symptoms disappear, then enable progressively until they recur.

If no change with a clean boot, try safe mode."