Windows 8 using 100% of HDD with high average response times and low read/write speed

Same problem here.  Been plaguing me for months.

Tried disabling all unnessacry servies, superfetch, etc.  Upgraded to latest Intel drivers, change power plan.  Nothing.  The computer becomes unusable for 5-7 mins at a time.  I have 16GB ram, Hybrid HD, and i7 with no shared video.  Any suggestions would be great!

Please read this carefully :

I have been suffering this problem ever since I upgraded to Win 8.0 from XP. The problem has perhaps worsened after I upgraded to Win 8.1 through Win App Store. I have tried several solutions discussed in this thread and other threads in MS community and in the internet. None of this worked.

Stage-1 :

The solution tried earlier and failed are :

1. Doubling my Virtual memory size.
2. Disabling SuperFetch.
3. Disabling Windows Defender.
4. Disabling Skydrive sync.
5. Disabling Automatic Defrag.
6. Ran CCleaner and cleaned up Registry
7. Stopped Auto Updates
8. A few more which I have forgotten

Have spent hours analysing the disk access patterns using Task Manager but couldn't find a meaningful pattern.

The fact is that when you disable one of the above, some other process is shown to be using the disk highly. One cannot exactly pinpoint which process is troubling as many are executed through the common service 'Service Host'. I had reinstalled XP-8.0-8.1 a couple of times but the installation used to take 5-6 HOURS.

Stage-2 :

Hence suspected a HDD problem and connected it on an alternate machine and tested through a host of software from Samsung, WD, MS, etc. but no problem was ever found even when low level scanning was done.

Stage-3 :

Suspected that the upgrade process had a problem and installed Windows 8.1 directly. It installed in about 40 mts though the normal time should have been 10-15 mts. Even this did not work as the problem started appearing once I access Internet using IE for the first time.

Stage-4 :

After having spent 3+ months of trying various options and installing the OS about 15 times, I had to conclude that either the HDD (bought in 2008) had some problems that did not show up in the diagnosis OR "The Windows 8.0 and 8.1" HDD driver is not fully supporting the HDD I was using. The reason is this : I have been using a Hitachi 250 GB IDE drive connected to a SATA port on Intel DH67BL Board through a IDE to SATA convertor. So I had to change the SATA settings to 'IDE' in the BIOS. It should have been 'AHCI' had I used a SATA drive. To confirm this I installed 8.1 (not an upgrade) on a Samsung IDE drive I had connect to SATA Port as above. It was behaving better and installation was over in 20-25 mts, but there were intermittent high disk usage while using Windows 8.1. Both the drivers were 7200 RPM. Even tried installing in IDE mode and changing the BIOS setting to AHCI subsequently. It totally failed in the first one and worked somewhat on the Samsung HDD.

Stage-5 :

I bought a new Seagate 1TB SATA drive and installed 8.1 and it behaves just fine on this machine for the last one month without any of the above tweaks (Used 'AHCI' mode in BIOS while installing). Hence the conclusion is that the drivers supplied with Win 8.0 and 8.0 does have some conflict with older HDDs.

People how is Microsoft to blame when all my machines that own and manage have not seen this problem and have all the updates on place? I'm willing to bet all of you are running an Intel with an Intel chip set. This is an Intel driver problem not Microsoft.

How can I find out if I use Intel drivers? I walked through device manager and the hard drive uses Microsoft drivers from 2006. Could it be that this driver does not work well with hybrid drives? The task manager shows no activity in SSD area but 100% activity (slow avg response time and transfers) in HDD part.

Please read this carefully :

I have been suffering this problem ever since I upgraded to Win 8.0 from XP........

......Hence the conclusion is that the drivers supplied with Win 8.0 and 8.0 does have some conflict with older HDDs.

I know this is an old thread but I've also recently resolved it and wanted to give back my two pence.

1 - I agree with you, the problem seems to be totally specific to win8/8.1 and certain hdd / motherboard combinations. And yes Intel controller chipsets seem to be central to the discussion threads. The PC that was giving me so much grief now has Ubuntu 14 and is running like a dream. My 2nd pc still has Windows 8.1 with nearly identical hardware (the SSD is a different brand) and guess what? no problems what-so-ever despite everything else being in common.

Painful as it might be, if you don't have the luxury of multiple PC's to play around with, I'd recommend either changing OS or changing HDD. Nothing else has permanently fixed this for me and it seems for many others.

How can I find out if I use Intel drivers? I walked through device manager and the hard drive uses Microsoft drivers from 2006. Could it be that this driver does not work well with hybrid drives? The task manager shows no activity in SSD area but 100% activity (slow avg response time and transfers) in HDD part.

If you're using Windows visit this URL

http://www.intel.com/p/en\_US/support/detect

and install the auto detect utility. It will look for any intel hardware and dowload the latest drivers automatically.

This improved my first PC significantly (although not 100% as I mentioned above)