The disk is constantly working, judging by the continuous glow of the indicator on the front panel of the computer, and in the task manager we see that the disk utilization is 100%. All programs launch slowly and you cannot determine what is loading your computer so much.

Excessive disk load is very common immediately after reinstalling the system. Services are launched that sort the data, index it, and optimize the disk. Unfortunately, sometimes the load is so high that it is impossible to use the computer. We offer several ways to cope with this problem.

Automatic disk defragmentation starts at some time and optimizes the hard drive. This process can significantly slow down your computer.

To turn off automatic disk defragmentation, go to the Windows 8 Start screen or the Windows 7 Start menu and type “defragmentation” in the search bar. The “Defragment and optimize your disks” feature should appear in the search results.

Click on the found entry. The disk optimization window will open. Click on “Customize schedule” in Windows 7 or “Change settings” in Windows 8.

In the window that opens, disable the “Run on a schedule (recommended)” option. If you disable this option, the system will not defragment without our knowledge and consent.

Disable file indexing

File indexing is probably the biggest drain on disk performance right after a system reinstall. What is indexing? The system scans the disk, building and putting in order a database of all files that are located in their partitions. Thanks to this, subsequent searches for files using a search engine are much faster.

Unfortunately, the indexing process itself can take a very long time and at the same time slow down the computer. Fortunately, it can be easily disabled. To do this, press the Win + R key combination. The “Run” window will open - enter the command in it services.msc and confirm its execution with Enter.

In the list of services on the right side you need to find the Windows Search service. Double-click on it and in the window that opens, click on “Stop”. Then set the “Startup Type” field to “Disabled”. Thanks to this, file indexing will not be enabled automatically.

Disable preloading of data into RAM (Prefetcher)

Preloading data into RAM is another system service whose purpose is to speed up the operating system and reduce program loading times, but in many cases it works the other way around.

To disable it, press the Win + R key combination. In the Run window that opens, enter the regedit command to enter the Windows Registry Editor.

In the editor, go to the following parameter:

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > System > CurrentControlset > Control > Session Manager > Memory Management >.

Click on the PrefetchParameters parameter, the following entries will open on the right side:

• EnableSuperfetch;
• EnableBootTrace (can only be on Windows 7).

Double-click on each of the listed parameters and change their value to 0. Then exit the Registry Editor and restart the computer.

Turn off diagnostic and usage data (Windows 10)

Windows 10 has a built-in feature that collects and sends diagnostic data from the system to Microsoft. This is statistical data regarding Windows usage that is provided to help developers fix bugs and improve system quality. Many people have problems with this feature, claiming that it reduces user privacy. But, besides this problem, there are no less important technical ones, namely... disk loading.

After updating KB3201845, it turns out that the diagnostic and information collection function starts additional services related to Windows performance monitoring. In short, this update causes the so-called Windows Performance Recorder (WPR) service to launch, which collects tons of information about the computer. The action of this service leads to the fact that the hard drive is working all the time, and in the Task Manager we see 100% disk load. What to do about it?

First, you need to make sure that it is Windows Performance Recorder that is causing excessive disk load. To do this, right-click on Start and select “Command Prompt (Administrator)” from the drop-down menu.

In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command and confirm its execution by pressing Enter:

WPR-cancel

This command can delay the WPR (Windows Performance Recorder) service. If the message “There are no trace profiles running” appears on the screen, this means that WPR did not work, i.e. it was not the cause of the problem and the solution should be looked for elsewhere.

However, if a message appeared confirming the delay of this feature and the disk load decreased after a while, then this means that WPR was actually running in the background and started every time the system was rebooted.

The solution is to limit data collection in Windows 10.

To do this, go through the Start button to Settings and select the “Privacy” section.

In the side menu, scroll down to Reviews and Diagnostics and find the Diagnostics and Usage Data option on the right. Set the Send device information to Microsoft field to Basic Information.

Now this service will be automatically disabled and will not start along with the operating system. Now the load on the disk should decrease to a lower level.

Conflict between Skype and Chrome programs in Windows 10

The next reason for high disk load is not only typical for older computers, but can also occur on new laptops with Windows 10. It turns out that the cause may be a combination of installed programs - Skype and Chrome.

We have already looked at how to solve high disk load problems by disabling unnecessary services. But it turns out that these solutions do not always help, since the problem can arise through the action of a certain set of reasons.

It turns out that users who purchased a new laptop with Windows 10 encounter 100% disk load. The system starts up and works quickly, but after about 5 minutes the computer slows down significantly. The problem occurs when installing two programs on a laptop with Windows 10 - Chrome and Skype. This situation is described on the official Microsoft forum and we have prepared a solution for you based on its reports.
These programs somehow conflict with each other, which leads to high disk load. To avoid this, you need to make changes to your Chrome and Skype settings.

Chrome

In the Chrome browser, you need to go to advanced settings. To do this, in the upper right corner of the window, click on the “Settings and Control” button (indicated by three vertical dots). Then in the drop-down menu go to the “Settings” item and at the very bottom we find the link “Show additional settings...”.

In the expanded list we find the “Personal Data” section. Here we find the item “Use hints to speed up page loading”.

You need to uncheck this item, since in some cases this option can cause problems with disk loading.

Skype

Now you need to make changes to Skype. First, you need to completely close it so that it does not work even in the background. We close it using the tray icon or by deleting the Skype.exe process itself in the Task Manager.

Now go to the folder in which Skype is installed. If you haven't changed anything, then the default path is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone.

Here we find the Skype.exe file. Right-click on it and select “Properties”. Go to the Security tab and click on the "Edit" button.

Note that in the window that opens you can edit the access rights of individual groups. Select the “All application packages” group in the list. You can now manage permissions for this group using the bottom position.

In the “Allow” capital, check the “Write” field to allow the “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES” group to record data. Save the changes to OK. Now you can turn on Skype again and use the Chrome browser, the download to disk should be significantly reduced.

Very often the disk is 100% loaded in Windows 10 and the problem occurs when you have just reinstalled the system, everything is fine with the hardware, but the computer slows down a lot. You press Ctrl+Alt+Delete and see in the task manager that the hard drive is 100% loaded.

This can happen at system startup or after some time. This problem does not arise in any specific situation, it appears on its own and at any time. After this, the computer begins to work slowly, and some people simply reboot the system in the hope that the problem will go away.

Disk loading 100% on Windows 10 (solution)

Most often, this problem occurs in Windows 8, 8.1 or 10. Since only these versions of Windows have a special Windows Search service, which should be aimed at speeding up the system, but often, due to its performance curve, everything only gets worse. After disabling this process, the disk should not load at 100% in Windows 10.

Important: you must have administrator rights and all subsequent actions must be performed as an administrator.

We need to open Services in Windows

1. Press Win (button with 4 squares) + R, in the window that opens, enter services.msc and press Enter.
2. The second method is to enter in the search field Services, right click and run as administrator

In the window that opens, find the service "Windows Search"

Double-click a service to open its options and settings. First press the key "Stop", then select "Startup type" and change it to "Disabled"

Disabling this service will be especially effective on older computer models.

Now you can go and check the load in the device manager by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete.

Don't rush to close the window Services. If disabling Windows Search does not help, you need to disable another service. It is called SuperFetch. As a rule, this service is aimed at speeding up Windows 8.1 and 10, and is sometimes found on Vista and Windows 7. In some cases, it can cause problems and put a lot of stress on the disk.

The SuperFetch service must be stopped and disabled in Windows Services in the same way, as was done in the previous method.

Need to find a service "Superfetch". Open it by double clicking. Disable by clicking Stop, then select Startup Type and change it to Disabled.

As a rule, after these two manipulations everything returns to normal, if everything is in order with your hardware and HDD.

Antivirus scan

A very common problem when you catch a virus. It may start to overload your computer and hard drive. In this case, everything can be solved by installing an antivirus program. We have no right to recommend any software. We can only say that there are several proven and free programs, each of which is very effective. Links to programs are provided below:

• CureIt from Dr.Web is a good free version of the antivirus that will allow you to quickly scan your computer
• The free version of Kaspersky is very effective and can often find things that CureIt cannot find.

Sometimes there are situations when damaged clusters or files appear on the disk, then the disk loads 100% in Windows 10. They can also reduce the speed of the HDD, and problems with reading and opening files may appear. To fix errors on the HDD, you need to take a number of actions.

1. Open a command prompt by typing CMD in the search bar
2. Next enter chkdsk.exe /f /r
3. The HDD will be checked
4. At the end of the check, restart the computer and check how much the HDD is loaded in Device Manager

Question from a user

Hello.

Out of the blue, my laptop started to slow down - the hard drive light on it kept on coming on. It slows down, can freeze for a long time, then comes to life for a few seconds, and then again. If you open any program or game at such a moment, then everything works very slowly, you may not wait for it to open...

I formatted the HDD completely and reinstalled Windows - it didn’t help (by the way, the installation took a very long time). I checked the computer with Dr.Web Cureit (+ Kaspersky) - it also did not help. Hard drive temperature 30-35 degrees.

Good day!

And I’m increasingly noticing that someone has replaced my hard drive...

In fact, a slow hard drive is not that uncommon, and it’s not always easy to make a “diagnosis.” The reasons can be either hardware (for example, if the hard drive is damaged) or software (for example, uTorrent can load the disk by hashing). In the article I will try to indicate how to find and eliminate the cause (I will analyze the most popular ones). So...

❶ HDD brake analysis

In some cases, you can almost exactly determine where to look for the cause of slow disk operation. Therefore, the very first thing I want to start with is observation and analysis. Below I will give a series of questions that will make it clear where I am going:

1) Does the hard drive make clicking noises when applying the brakes? Are you hearing knocking noises? Are there any suspicious sounds that weren't there before? (I must warn you here that many serviceable hard drives emit a “light” grinding noise. I’m talking here about those sounds that have not previously arisen during operation) ?

Similar sounds may indicate a problem with the mechanics of the disk. In this case, the cheapest option is to replace the disk with a new one ();

2) Does it happen to you that files become “broken”, or do errors appear about the integrity of files when opening them? How long does the process of copying and reading files take? Does Windows take a long time to load? Positive answers to these questions may indicate bad blocks. (you can try to cure it, more on that below) , the fact that the disk was dropped (hit), file system errors;

3) have you tried to run Task Manager and see if there are any programs there that “rape” your hard drive, loading it at 100% (for example, it could be uTorrent)? To open the task manager, press the Ctrl+Shift+Esc buttons.

It happens that the task manager shows the load at 50-100%, but the programs that do this are not displayed. In this case, try using a third-party monitor, such as .

Performance monitor - what is loading the disk // Advanced SystemCare 10

4) how strong are your brakes: it’s just a slight delay of 0.5÷1 sec. in the game, there seems to be a short freeze (once every 15-20 minutes), or they are so strong that you can’t even start that same game - you wait for 3-4 minutes. Until it loads and the first menu appears? It’s just that in the first case it’s often a matter of power supply settings, in the second the range of problems is much wider;

5) Was there a power outage? The fact is that after such an “abrupt” shutdown of the PC (laptops are usually saved by the battery), you need to run the utility chkdsk(more on this below), and check the disk for file system errors (which, by the way, Windows itself often does).

❷ Checking the disk for errors and bad blocks. SMART readings

Perhaps one of the main steps to start in the fight against freezes and slow disk operation is to check if there are any file system errors on the disk (and if there are, fix them), and if it has started to crumble - if bad problems have appeared -blocks.

These topics are quite extensive and I will not go into detail in this article (fortunately, there is a separate instruction, I will provide a link to it here).

Many users often neglect to check the fur. component of the disk, and yet in vain. If the disk slows down very much, then I recommend that you definitely check whether everything is in order with it. In many cases, the problem can be identified almost immediately once the S.M.A.R.T readings are reviewed. (hard drive self-diagnosis system).

By the way, the S.M.A.R.T. readings can be found in “simple” utilities than Victoria (which is discussed in the article linked above). For example, in the same CrystalDiskInfo utility (I talked about it in this article -).

To find out S.M.A.R.T. and assess the condition of the disk - you just need to run the CrystalDiskInfo utility. Then, within a few seconds, the utility will independently evaluate your disk and make a verdict - an example in the screenshot below (both good and bad).

❸ Drive power mode. Power supply

There are two points to this point. The first is - are the cables inserted well and tightly into the hard drive sockets? It happens that the cables do not fit tightly, which is why the power supply to the hard drive may be unstable (this is not good).

And, the second point, in the power settings of your computer (most often laptops are guilty of this)- can be supplied economical mode. Because of this, if there is no access to the disk for some time, it stops. But then, when you contact it, it needs time, and as a result, you experience a slight freeze of 0.5÷1.5 seconds. This is especially noticeable in games, editors, and other applications.

1) So, first open: \Hardware and Sound\Power Supply

Then in the list of extras. parameters expand the tab "Hard disk/Disable hard disk via" and set your time. To prevent the hard drive from turning off at all, set the time - 0 . After that, save the settings and restart the PC.

Also pay attention to one more point. Often laptop manufacturers install additional features on their devices. software designed, for example, to save battery power. And due to what? Due to monitor brightness, screen blanking timer, etc. Among other things, there are options that, in addition to Windows, help stop the hard drive...

In general, the message is simple - check if you have such manager programs and, at least for a while, try to set the performance in them to maximum.

❹ Disk operating mode - PIO/DMA. AHCI mode

If you have a fairly old computer, then you may encounter the fact that Windows (due to some errors) has switched the hard drive out of operation mode DMA(allowing you to work directly with RAM) to the old one PIO- due to which all actions are performed through the CPU. As a result, the speed of work drops, and drops very significantly!

How can you find out what mode the disk is in:

Also be sure to pay attention to another thing - Advanced Host Controller Interface - AHCI. If you have this mode disabled in the BIOS ( and, for example, you could turn it off yourself when checking the disk, say, because some old utilities refuse to work in this mode) - then the disk will slow down a lot.

To check if everything is in order, go to the BIOS, then, usually, you need to open the tab Configuration. The links below will help you.

ACHI mode enabled || Laptop BIOS

And one moment.

When installing Windows, it usually installs SATA AHCI drivers automatically (at least modern OS). In many cases this is, of course, good, but in some cases the disk behaves unstable. The message here is simple - find out the motherboard manufacturer and download the SATA AHCI drivers from the official website. site, and reinstall them!

To help! How to find out PC specifications (including motherboard manufacturer) -

Driver Booster - installing SATA AHCI drivers

In some cases, you can try to update drivers via : to do this, just open the tab "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" , then right-click on "...SATA AHCI...", in the context menu select "Update drivers...", and follow the wizard's instructions.

Device Manager - SATA ACHI Driver Update

Important!

For mat. boards on Intel chips - be sure to install the driver "The Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology". Usually it comes included on a disk with your laptop/PC (also available on the manufacturer’s website). And he will also find it Driver Booster(screenshot above).

❺ Hard drive temperature analysis

In general, the optimal operating temperature for a hard drive is considered to be approximately 30÷40°C. When the temperature goes beyond these limits, pay close attention to the cooling system (in general, many hard drives can operate relatively quietly at 50°C (degrees Celcius), but their service life is significantly reduced!).

To help! Hard drive temperature: tell me what to do, the HDD heats up to 49-54°C. How to reduce HDD temperature -

To find out the HDD temperature, use some utility to determine the characteristics of your computer. For example, I usually use CrystalDiskInfo, Aida64, Speccy (link to article with utilities below).

To help! Utilities for viewing PC characteristics -

How to lower your temperature:

❻ Cleaning the hard drive from debris. Defragmentation

No matter how careful the user is, over time a large amount of “garbage” accumulates on the hard drive: various temporary files, erroneous shortcuts, browser caches, “tails” from old deleted programs and games, etc. All this affects Windows performance. From time to time this “good” needs to be cleaned.

The best utilities for cleaning your computer can be found in this article -

Guide to cleaning your computer/laptop to speed it up -

A few words about defragmentation(I explain clumsily...)

If your Windows behaves somewhat slowly when opening files from disk ( note: slower than usual), then this could be due to fragmentation (a scatter of “pieces” of your file on the disk that all need to be collected and read before the file is shown to you. The stronger the fragmentation, the higher the scatter, and the more time it takes to find all the “pieces”)

Defragmentation is the process of optimizing information storage on disk, necessary to ensure a continuous sequence of clusters (so that all the “pieces” of the file are in one place). In general, if we step back from unclear terms, then after defragmentation your disk starts working faster: reading and writing files speeds up. Thanks to this, your programs become more responsive, and it becomes more pleasant to work on such a PC!

❼Disable disk indexing

Can load the disk quite heavily indexing(a special thing in new Windows that makes it easier to find files). In fact, a very small part of users constantly use file search, and therefore indexing, in principle, is unnecessary for them!

To disable it: just go to "This computer" ("My computer") and go to the properties of the desired disk.

Disable disk indexing

Finally: if the above did not help, try installing another version of Windows (not different collections -), change/update drivers, . Perhaps this is too banal advice (which many already do before looking for advice on blogs and forums like mine), and yet, in some cases, the reason lies precisely in them...

One of the most difficult issues to resolve with Windows 10/8.1 is when it suddenly stops responding or responds slowly. There can be many reasons, but the most common one is when the disk is loaded at 100 percent in the task manager. Many people began to pay attention to the persistent workload of the hard drive after updating Windows 7 to 8.1 and 10.

In this guide, we will look step by step at various solutions to fix this problem after studying and implementing the methods described by others, as well as our own experiments. Many forums and sites mention methods such as disabling superfetch, prefetch and service bits, but I will not recommend the same. I mean, you can actually disable it to solve the 100% hard drive usage problem.

Ways to solve when the disk is 100 percent loaded in Windows 10/8.1

1. Updating windows can lead to high hard drive load. Just close all programs and wait for Windows to install updates, then restart your computer.

2. Using the Control Panel, remove all browsers except EDGE and Internet Explorer. This isolates the problem with plugins (browser extensions). Another suggestion is to remove the plugins one by one from each browser and check. Adobe Flash and Shockwave player are common culprits of hard drive load.. Knowing the fact that browsers can be re-installed in a matter of seconds, then delete the "TEMP" folder by typing in Explorer (my computer) %Temp%. Empty folder Prefetch(preload files) along the path C:\Windows. If the folders are not completely cleared, then I recommend that they be completely cleared. Reboot the system and wait 12 minutes; if the problem is resolved, you can reinstall the deleted browsers.

3. It's worth considering the impact of diagnostic tracking in Windows 10. Many users blame the service DiagTrack at 100% hard disk load. If you see this in the task manager in the disk load usage, then disable it. Run command line as administrator and enter the commands there one after another:

sc config "DiagTrack" start= disabled

sc stop "DiagTrack"

4. Run Command Prompt as Administrator. Type in search, near start, cmd and right-click run as administrator. In CMD enter the following command chkdsk. This command will fix errors on your hard drives.

If this does not help, then we will run this procedure with enhanced functions. Type the following command and press Enter:

chkdsk.exe /f /r

• /F corrects detected errors.
• /R identifies bad sectors and tries to recover information.

5. Open and disable cloud protection and look at disk loading.

6. Windows Search Indexer is one process that could be the culprit behind your 100 percent disk utilization problem. If you don't use Windows search, you can check if the problem is resolved.

7. Disable Print Manager, which in turn works for all users at once. Press the keyboard shortcut Win+R and enter services.msc. Your printer will stop working after this. But at least you can check if this is the reason or not. If the reason is this point, then try connecting another printer or update the drivers.

8. The setting will help you reduce the load on your hard drive.

9. Update your drivers to the latest versions.

10. Open a command prompt and type sfc /scannow to check the integrity of system files.

11. Open a Command Prompt, type the following command and press Enter to run the Performance Troubleshooter.

12. Virtual memory is a combination of RAM and hard drive space and can be the reason your hard drive is being overused. If there is not enough RAM to complete a task, the hard drive is used to supplement the RAM. The data moved to the hard drive is then returned to RAM. Try setting up the swap file and playing with the size. Set the paging file to 1.5 times larger than your installed RAM on your computer and check, if it doesn’t help, then see more.

13. If all else fails, then you can reset windows. You can do this to come back later.

14. Standard power modes are more susceptible to 100% disk usage, but switching to high performance often solves the problem. Click Win + X and select " Power management", then click on " Additional power options" and turn on " ".

15 . The disk may be 100 percent loaded due to scheduled defragmentation. Type "windows" in search task Manager" and run the application. Disable all scheduled disk defragmentation tasks.

16. Otherwise, if Task Manager shows 100% disk usage on Windows 10 devices with Interrupt Mode and Signal Message (MSI) enabled, see: in the support article .

Advice: Hard drive wear and tear is the main culprit behind freezing and booting at 100%. If your drive is already 7 years old, then most likely it will have to be replaced. SSD drive is very popular these days, replace it instead of your HDD hard drive. An increase in speed is guaranteed.

Disk is the biggest performance bottleneck in modern computers. All major hardware components have long had a power potential that is limited by the performance of disk systems. Somehow this problem is solved by the latest solid-state drives, but even they sometimes cannot ensure fast system operation.

Microsoft developers failed to cope with the algorithms of the latest version of Windows and created a system that cannot efficiently use the hard drive.

Why is the disk loaded at 100 percent?

For some it’s 100%, for others it’s not 100%, but the fact is clear - Windows 10 often “slows down” and freezes precisely because the disk is loaded. This condition occurs due to some services that are used in this OS.

There are several probable reasons for this:

1. The search service indexes all files on the hard drive in order to find the files and folders users need as quickly as possible, if necessary. So, during indexing, the system accesses the hard drive too actively.
2. Superfetch service. Allows Windows 10 to somehow “cache” the applications you launch most often. And this seems to allow you to turn on programs faster when you restart them. To do this, it monitors everything that is happening in the system, writes something somewhere, and makes a lot of noise with the disk.
3. Windows Defender - Defender. This is also a system service. Performs all kinds of scans looking for malware. It usually doesn’t load the disk at 100%, but at 30-40% it’s easy. The scan settings are specified in the scheduler.

What to do if the Windows 10 disk is loaded?

You can try to look for some “correct” solutions that do not affect system components, but I don’t believe in that. From the very first versions of Windows, it was always necessary to make many additional settings so that the computer did not slow down. And I believe that Windows 10 also needs similar “tuning”. If developers make crooked decisions, they just need to stop it.

Disabling services that cause the system to slow down and the hard drive to load

So, everything is simple here. You need to open service management and disable the suspected problematic services

Windows Search

First you need to launch the Service Management snap-in. There are many ways to do this, but the simplest and my favorite is through the “Run...” dialog, which can be quickly called up with a key combination win+R

The equipment is called by the command services.msc

Why do I use this particular method? Because Windows developers can change the location of menus, control panels, settings and other graphic elements from version to version. But console commands and system kernel utilities remain unchanged. Therefore, instead of searching for where to enable it, I simply launch the snap-in with this command. Saving time and effort level 80, friends :)

In the window that opens, find the Windows Search service in the list and double-click on it to open the dialog for managing it. You can, of course, just click the “stop” button in the upper left corner or in the dialog itself. But this will only help for the duration of the current session. And when you restart, the service will be started again, because by default it is set to start automatically when the system starts. In order to change this behavior, you need to set the status to “disabled” and click “apply” or “ok”. Then, during subsequent starts, the service will not start and will not affect the disk load.

Superfetch

Everything is the same here. In the same window we change the service settings.

Windows Defender

This is a separate conversation. It is better not to disable this service. But you can change its settings in the Windows 10 scheduler. The fact is that the service periodically starts scanning files. Removing a job from the scheduler or changing its settings can help reduce the impact of this service on system performance. At least I managed to achieve a positive effect.

So, let's launch the equipment taskschd.msc in a similar way through Win+R and find it there on the left in the Windows Defender tree. He has several tasks. It only makes sense to touch and scan.

You can try to remove it completely if you are sure what you are doing, or you can change the settings.

At a minimum, you can change the setting to shut down a process if it runs too long. The default value is 3 days! This means scanning can take 3 days before the system forces it to stop. Imagine how slow the computer can be all this time. So I reduced this value to one hour. If a service does not cope with the planned task in an hour, the OS kills the process, and the performance will decrease for a maximum of an hour.

Windows 10 disk check

Many manuals recommend using SFC /SCANNOW And CHKDSK /R. These methods can really help if the disk boot is due to errors in the file system. However, this may only be a temporary solution. If you encounter such a situation, you need to check the SMART disk. This is a disk self-diagnosis tool. Perhaps your drive will soon stop working and just need to be replaced. If so, SMART will show it.

Replacing the drive

It may turn out that your drive is really worth replacing. In this case, I recommend considering the option and for replacement.