My PC disk is always at 100% usage no matter what I do. I’ve deleted temp files, ran disk cleanup, cleared cache on google. What else can I do?

  • I_need_happiness@alien.top
    BEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Disk is 100% - Clear me this:

    • Is your storage 100% full?
    • Is your disk being utilised 100%?

    Storage Full:

    The following action would change nothing if your storage is 100% full. Literally, it would change nothing. Y

    My PC disk is always at 100% usage no matter what I do. I’ve deleted temp files, ran disk cleanup, cleared cache on google. What else can I do?

    You have files which you need to clean up. Windows 10 and Windows 11 has something called as Storage Sense in Windows Settings, which would tell you what files you have and which constitutes the majority. Work on that, dude.

      • I_need_happiness@alien.top
        BEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Now things are clear:

        First let us know something about Active Time.

        Disk Active Time is a measure of how much time the disk spent servicing I/O requests. A slower disk will require more disk active time to service the same number of I/Os as a faster disk.

        Disk active time is the time the HDD is working. The higher the time/percentage, the more you utilise the HDD.
        If you hit 99%, you are actually bottle-necked by the read/write performance of your HDD.

        You need to know about multiple things.

        • If Active time is 100%, your disk is trying to service request all the time.
        • It can be because - either one of the following is happening:
          • Your disk has become so weak that it needs to work 100% to service even basic request.
          • You have a good disk - but, You have so many background processes that it is choking your disk very badly.
          • You have a good disk - and You are actually infected by some malware or some virus.

        Open Task Manager (Press Ctrl + Shift + Escape) and goto performance Tab. There, you should see a column called as “Disk”. When you click on the column header, you should be able to sort the processes which are using the disk. From the list, identify if there are any processes which are unknown or shady. If there is any, remove it.

        If there is no shady process, I suspect that your disk might have gone too weak to support this IO. How do you test it? I find following articles too clear:

        So, for you HDD Model, you would actually get technical stats and check if the current stats is as same as the one in the stat. If there is more than 50% to 60% difference, I suspect that disk might be weak. But Hold on. I am not telling that it is surely weak.

        Usually, if there is another process totally bugging your disk, this stat test will definitely give you a false negative report. So, how do I usually test HDD status is:

        So, Let me not confuse further:

        Following can be causes:

        1. Virus or Malware - Check other thread or Malware Guide of this Subreddit and run a scan. If that doesn’t fix anything, go to step 2.
        2. Suspicious Background Process
          1. Try to identify the processes. If you can, remove them.
          2. If there’s no problem with data, Reinstall the Windows Fresh and Check if active Time is 100%. If fresh installed Windows has 100% Active, you have bad hard disk. If you are concerned with data, go for next point
          3. Create a Live Bootable Linux Utility and check performance with DD. If DD gives negative feedback, it is your HDD. If Linux gives good result, most probably your Windows is infected.
        3. HDD Failure
          1. Upgrade to SSD
          2. (or) Get a new HDD
          3. (or) Your might have connected HDD in wrong interface.