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How to fix 100% disk usage in Windows 10
This is caused by a common combination of Skype as well Google Chrome. Similar issue with other programs could also cause 100% disk usage. To fix this do the following:
Google Chrome:
In Google Chrome, go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings ... > Privacy > Prefetch resources to load pages more quickly
and untick it. See Figure-1 below:
Figure-1
Skype:
Make sure you have exited Skype and it is not running in the taskbar (if it is running in the taskbar then quit it).
Open Windows Explorer and open the following folder:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone"
Now right click "Skype.exe" file and then click "Properties" and open the "Security" tab.
Click the "Edit" button and then highlight "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES" and place a tick in the "Write" box.
Click "Apply" and then "OK" and then "OK" again. See Figures-2 to Figure-6 below:
This is it, now run Skype and check the Disk Usage in Task Manager and it will no longer show you 100% disk usage anymore:-
I hope this helps people. I spent a long time in finding a solution to this problem.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
THIS IS THE SOLUTION.
Buy a new HD. That's it. Go to Amazon and buy WD Blue o whatever you like. Really.
It worked for me. Tried EVERYTHING, but this worked. It seems there is compatibility issues with windows 8 and 10, but believe me, there are more old HD out there than compatibility issues.
BUY AN HD NOW!
It appears that I spoke too soon. My success was short lived.
But, this time I think it's truly fixed. I had replaced Windows Defender with Avira, but that didn't help at all. Avira did however remove a font file that I had downloaded which may have been a factor in the eventual outcome.
After I switched back to Windows Defender, I began to focus on the Windows.old folder. I had done a Disk Cleanup of system files with every option checked, but the Windows.old folder remained. When I tried to manually delete the folder, I got a message that the files were in use. This struck me as odd so I began trying different methods to delete the files, all to no avail.
As a last resort, and out of frustration, I decided to reinstall Windows using the recovery method that removes everything and cleans the drive before you donate or recycle it. During the re-installation, I created a local account rather than signing in with my Microsoft account and turned off everything I was given the option to.
I have since restored all of my files from my backup and reinstalled all of my applications (including Chrome). The two things that I have NOT done are sign in with my Microsoft account or set up OneDrive (the little cloud icon on my taskbar is greyed out). If I decide to roll the dice and do either of these things, I will report back.
I did this on 11/22 and since then my disk usage has been at or near 0% no matter how many different tasks are running. I should mention that the Widows.old folder was initially gone, but returned after a Windows update.
If you are going to try this and are using File History as your backup, I will caution you that restoring your files could be a little tricky. At first, File History would crash every time I tried to restore, but it worked after Windows updated. I'm not sure why that is.
Good luck. Hope this helps someone.
Ha! It worked! I was very skeptical at this solution, because having looked at the active processes in my task manager, it didn't appear that Chrome was doing much of anything, and the solution seemed to simple to work (I'm not usually that lucky). However, I stand corrected! Sure enough, my steadily-lit HDD light is now off, or at least, seldomly giving a very brief blip only. I just upgraded from 2GB ram to 8GB ram also, hoping that would fix the problem, but nope. Despite having triple 500GB drives running in parallel, giving me near-SSD speeds on CrystalDiskMark (~250 MB/sec seq write), my RAID0 volume would still sit there jogging at 100% for like 15-20 minutes after boot-up! No more though! Thank you so much for that info, it is very much appreciated.
QPootle2...Addressing the 50%...you likely have two hard disks drives in your computer. When one is at 100% and the other is at or near 0%, the column header shows 50%.
Yes, this did the trick for my machine along with turning off all background apps in Privacy/Background Apps. Disk activity went from 90% down to 1-3%. Thought I had some sort of HW or malware problem. Thank You!
