Windows 10 - Task Manager Says Disk Is At 100% Usage

Question

OS: Windows 10 (Pre-Installed)

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 500GB free

Processor: i5

Disk Type: Hard Drive

I have had Windows 10 for over a year now and it has been fine (a part from corruption about 6 months ago).

However, yesterday, I got an update for Windows 10 as well as uninstalling an old driver and installing a new one for a graphics tablet I just got. Today, I noticed games running slower than usual and freezing sometimes.

Task Manager and Resource Manager both say my disk is at 100% usage:

I'm not sure if this is related to the drivers or update. I tried reverting to the previous Windows 10 update, as well as uninstalling the driver, but nothing changed.

I have tried many suggestions from the web such as:

• Disabling Superfetch, Windows Search, BITS
• Editing the AHCI in the registry

None of them worked.

I am doing an anti-virus scan currently.

Any ideas what I could do?

EDIT:

Many people have been pointing out that McAfee is taking up a lot of the disk usage. This is because I was running a scan during the screenshot. Without McAfee scanning, it is still at 100% disk usage overall, but McAfee is not up there.

Not sure if this changes anything.

EDIT 2:

Found a fix.

See my answer, below.

Solution

So, I think I've found it. Unless my computer just decided to stop being stubborn, this command seemed to work:

chkdsk /R

(Check Disk and fix any problems).

It still has 100% Disk Usage when I load my PC, but I guess that is normal loading stuff. After 5 minutes or so it drops down to 1% or 0%.

Check Disk was the last thing I tried before it started working, so I assume that's what did it.

Thanks for the help, anyway!

Comments

[Admin]

Are you running a scan during this task man screenshot, or is this the average disk utilization of McAfee on your PC?

[Admin]

I am running a scan. Whenever I kill a program, a new one just fills the gap with disk usage.

[Admin]

"I'm not sure if this is related to the drivers or update." - Does it happen while in Safe Mode? If it doesn't then manually configure Windows to boot into a minimal configuration, and one by one, identify which driver or service introduces the problem.

[Admin]

The thing is, I can't boot in safe mode because I've forgotten my password and resetting it doesn't work, seemingly.

[Ramhound]

An inactivated Windows installion won't have high disk usage for that reason alone.

[HN Singh]

I have the practical experience of having this thats why I wrote this,otherwise I would have never believed this if anyone would have told me this.

[Woafer]

I have been using Windows 10 fine for over a year. My computer came with Windows 10 pre-installed. I'm not sure if this makes any difference to having to activate Windows 10 or not.

[Woafer]

I was running a McAfee scan during the screenshot. If McAfee isn't scanning, other things fill the space to make 100% disk usage.

[Ramhound]

@Woafer - It doesn't. Your Windows 10 installation is already activated.

[Woafer]

Mine was about 57,500!

[magicandre1981]

again, watch the video. The disk controller says the disk is busy doing all operations. Replace the HDD with a SSD and your issues are gone

[karan punjabi]

You should NOT disable the Runtime Broker. howtogeek.com/268240/…

[desbest]

I tried to graph the handle count and thread count and it never displayed on the graph.