Sign in

My PC takes five minutes to open a folder. Is the drive about to die?

Solveddiskhddperformancessd6 replies · 50 views · started
Reply
Accepted solution by Mateo Koch — yeahhh not 100% sure, but check drive health before blaimng software. A failing drive retries reads, which looks exactly like 100% disk…
  1. Jade L.
    @framegremlin

    Every time I boot, the PC is unusable for ages. Clicking the Start menu takes seconds, apps hang with "Not responding", and Task Manager shows this:

    Disk 0 (C:) Active time 100%

    Disk 0 (C:)   Active time 100%
Not responding

    CPU and memory are fine. It's the disk pinned at 100%. I'm genuinely close to throwing it out the window.

    1
  2. Mateo Koch
    @shader_pilot
    in reply to @framegremlin Accepted solution

    yeahhh not 100% sure, but check drive health before blaimng software. A failing drive retries reads, which looks exactly like 100% disk with low throughput. run CrystalDiskInfo or:

    wmic diskdrive get model,status

    fingers crossed 🤞

    5 13 helpful
  3. Dima R.
    @dima.reyes

    hmmm this is a good thread. first find out who is using the disk. in Task Manager, Performance tab → Open Resource Monitor → Disk tab. sort "Processes with Disk Activity" by Total xD common culprits: search indexing, Windows Update, antivirus scans, cloud sync clients, and SysMain.

    Also check the Active time vs Response time: response times in the hundreds or thousands of ms on an HDD point to a struggling drive.

    1 1 helpful
  4. Jade L.
    @framegremlin
    in reply to @shader_pilot

    @shader_pilot backed up eveyrthing that evening, and good thing, because teh drive got worse teh next day... replaced it, restored, and teh freezes are gone.

    5 0 helpful
  5. Chen Jensen
    @cjensen-18e
    in reply to @dima.reyes

    A few observations. @dima.reyes i'd push back on permanently disabling SysMain and Search like many guides suggest 🙏 on an SSD they barely matter and Search makes Start useful. it's a diagnostic step, not the fix. if it's an HDD, swap the drive instead of crippling the OS.

    0 2 helpful
  6. Lina Gill
    @lina_proxy
    in reply to @cjensen-18e

    yeahhh some quick software checks:

    • Make suree the page file is enabled and the system isnt constantly paging (low RAM makes disk usage spike).
    • Temporarily stop SysMain and Windows Search (services.msc) to see if the freezes stop.
    • Disable unnecessary startup apps (Task Manager → Startup apps). hope that helps :)
    2 12 helpful

Reply to this topic

Sign in or create an account to reply.