HP Notebook - 15-db0015dx running Windows 10 having a 100% Disk usage problem.

[arnolyuna]

I am incredibly agitated and am finally turning to Reddit for help.

I got this laptop about 2ish years ago and it’s run fine ever since (not as well as my older Lenovo but that’s another matter entirely). Recently, I’ve been having a near crippling issue where my performance is laughably slow, typing in Final Draft or even Word is painful to say the least. I checked Task Manager and my disk usage is almost always at 95-100%. I don’t know much about computers but I know that can’t be good.

I’ve tried updating the computer multiple times, I’ve run disk checks, disabled Windows Search, disabled all non necessary start up functions, tried wiping virtual memory, disabled superfetch, and am now running what feels like my 5th full malware scan to try and clear this up.

I have 8gb of RAM installed (7.9 usable) so I don’t think that has anything to do with it. It’s a 1TB HD (i think?) so there’s no reason at all the disk should be full (most of my documents and big files are cloud based for work).

Anything I can do short of just saving up and buying a new laptop?

[iomare]

Hi,

You could check in Task Manager to see what process is using the drive.

Most likely you have a problem with the Hard Drive. The best idea would be to replace the hard drive with a 2,5" Sata3 SSD and then reinstall the OS on the new Hard Drive. This would solve the problem and also give a boost to the everyday performance of the machine.

Example

https://www.amazon.nl/SAMSUNG-500GB-Internal-MZ-77E500B-EU/dp/B08PC43D78/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?__mk_nl_NL=...

Page 45 of service manual you can see the steps to replace the drive

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c06719946.pdf

You can create a USB drive with Windows 10 on it before replacing the drive or on a different PC and then use to reinstall the OS.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can then use a USB to SATA adapter to recover any files from the old drive.

Hope it helps,

David

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[tk3000]

In the same task manager you could select the tab "Processes" and check which process is using up the disk's bandwidth. Clicking on the top of the column "Disk" should order the column in descending order.

You could also look into windows' event viewer (file: eventvwr.msc). In the even viewer you could look for anything unusual events (error, warning) by double clicking in the logging event. First, select "Windows Logs" on the left, then select the sub-categories Application, Security, and System Logs inside the "Windows Logs" group to investigate the issue.

As Iomare pointed out, likely it is the hard drive that is dying. Check S.M.A.R.T status of the hd. There may be something in the bios/firmware that does a thorough test of the hd. Alternatively, you could do a quick test in the prompt line (dos => type "cmd" in the search bar) with the command: "wmic diskdrive get model,status"