Disk usage 100%

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stessier
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Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

My father's laptop is showing Disk Usage at 100%. THe CPU is hanging out in the 50s and the Ram is around 60-67%.

There is nothing obviously pegging the needle. Any suggestions of things to try to fix it? I found this list - I'm currently working through the first scan. Only at 26%, though, after 1.5 hours.

Here are some computer details:
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Processor - AMD A10-4600M APU with Radeon HD Graphics 2.30GHz
Installed RAM - 6.00 GB
System - 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Windows - Windows 10 Pro
Version - 20H2
OS Build - 19042.1348
Experience - Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3920.0
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LordMortis
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by LordMortis »

taskmgr>more details>processes will tell you what processes are using what resources. If they are jumping around sort by, say disk usage.

https://www.howtogeek.com/405806/window ... ete-guide/
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stessier
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

Thanks, I had already done that. It is unclear what is causing 100% - when I first logged in, Kaspersky was the top process. We killed that, and then Windows Update Installer took over the lead, but it was still pegged at 100%.

The SFC scan is at 58% completion - after it hit 40%, the Disk usage meter started dropping. It now spends the slim majority of time <10% with excursions as high as 80%. Maybe it fixed the issue...guess we'll see.
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stessier
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

SFC completed and said it fixed some corrupted files.

Ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth and found nothing
Ran DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth and it's just sitting there. A youtube video I found suggest a progress counter should pop up, but nothing yet. Going to give it a bit longer before trying to kill it and try again.
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Skinypupy
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by Skinypupy »

Monitoring this thread.

Mrs. Skinypupy's laptop does this (and runs really slowly as a result), and I've never been able to figure out why. Drives her nuts.
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gilraen
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by gilraen »

Skinypupy wrote: Fri Dec 17, 2021 6:32 pm Monitoring this thread.

Mrs. Skinypupy's laptop does this (and runs really slowly as a result), and I've never been able to figure out why. Drives her nuts.
Try disabing SysMain (aka SuperFetch) and see if that makes a difference.
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Defiant
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by Defiant »

Is this regularly occurring or a one time thing?

If it happens regularly, maybe disable things you don't need to run all the time from starting up when the computer starts up (in the Startup tab of the task manager) and just run them manually when you want to run them?
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hitbyambulance
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by hitbyambulance »

how old is the hard drive? assuming it's an HDD, not an SSD - since the machine make/model was not posted, i'm going by the CPU make and the amount of RAM - guessing this is a 2012-2015 era build, and probably is running with a platter drive.

five or six years... hmmm

seven or more years - definitely time to replace it

(as posted in another thread here, my mom's laptop [purchased in 2013] was experiencing extreme slowdown/lag. replaced the machine's HDD with an SSD and reinstalled the OS this summer, and it works fine now.)
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stessier
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

Just able to get back to this tonight. Tried disabling Superfetch with no change.

Going back and trying to complete the scans that didn't finish last time. ScanHealth appears to be working this time, which is nice.

While that is running, I was looking around and saw that in Task Manager, the Disk Drive is said to be 699 GB with 300 GB formatted. Does this mean he might have partitioned his drive? When I check the C:, it says it is only 300 GB and is only about 50% full.

Edit: It's a WDC WD7500BPVT-08HXZT3 from Device Manager - which would seem to be a 750 GB drive. Hmmm.

Edit 2: Windows Module Installer Worker is topping the list tonight - it's been the main thing using the disk for the last 2 hours. Don't really want to stop that though.

Edit 3: Yes, he has a dual boot system with Linux on the other partition. Any reason that should cause an issue?
Last edited by stessier on Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by Daehawk »

These threads with the ? used as an icon for them. It shows theres a new post but I cant tell which one it is.
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stessier
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

Daehawk wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:00 pm These threads with the ? used as an icon for them. It shows theres a new post but I cant tell which one it is.
You can always click on the little "page" icon next to the ? to jump to the new post.
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stessier
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by stessier »

Well, completed all the scans and updated Windows to 21H2. Before I rebooted, but after the Windows update stopped, the disk usage dropped to 3%. Maybe the Windows Installer Worker is happy now? I'll have to see in the morning. Would be nice to actually be able to touch the machine so every time it reboots I don't have to call to get back into Quick Assist. :D
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LordMortis
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Re: Disk usage 100%

Post by LordMortis »

stessier wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 8:50 pm Well, completed all the scans and updated Windows to 21H2. Before I rebooted, but after the Windows update stopped, the disk usage dropped to 3%. Maybe the Windows Installer Worker is happy now? I'll have to see in the morning. Would be nice to actually be able to touch the machine so every time it reboots I don't have to call to get back into Quick Assist. :D
It's possible the updater was working and they AV was fighting it. That happens to me sometimes. It only seems persistent if Windows is going patch after patch after patch. Otherwise it's just a monthly or so endurance roll.

The thing is you are already doing the "recommended" troubleshooting

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... c261d61632
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