Windows 7 HDD problems

0

I've experienced a strange problem with my Windows 7 performance and I'm some kind of stuck with it.

I have the following symptoms:

  • During the usage of some programs (e.g. Lightroom or Eclipse) they randomly stop and I'm not able to do anything
  • During these random stops I've seen that the free space on the HDD is reduced to almost nothing and after a while the free space grows up to its original value (Normal free space: 1.69TB/4TB, Stop free space: 312GB/4TB)
  • During the random stops, I'm not able to access the HDD via File Explorer, it seems like all access to the HDD is blocked somehow
  • The random stops have a duration from a few seconds up to 1 minute

What I've tried:

  • My first idea was that there must be an error on the HDD. However I've replaced the HDD in question with a brand new one but the problem still exists
  • I've checked the HDDs multiple times, there are ok
  • I've disabled the indexing service

As said after the stop everything works normal again until the next stop.

What could be the reason for these random stops? Any ideas?

Kyle

Posted 2016-08-01T08:56:40.837

Reputation: 1

You need to define random stops. What is stopping? A pc doen'st typically stop. May be the mouse no longer moves, videos stops animating, sounds stops playing etc. What is stops? Also, how much RAM do you have? – Dave – 2016-08-01T09:01:32.083

The programs I use are not accepting any more input (usually because access to HDD is blocked). Windows itself does not freeze, I can switch between programs, move mouse, videos are playing etc. I have 8 GB of RAM with usually 3-4 GB still free. – Kyle – 2016-08-01T09:30:56.057

Answers

0

If the free space is reducing, something is writing to it. Thankfully windows has a built in tool that shows hard disk usage, and by which programs.

I would suggest opening up your task manager (ctrl+alt+Del) and then going to the performance tab. There at the bottom there should be a "Open Resource monitor button" Click it.

On the new window that opens click the Disk tab. Click the Disk activity bar so that it shows its contents below. Click "Write (B/sec)" so that the largest number is at the top.

Keep that window open, and when you next get a freeze go there and look what is writing. You can then see why that process is causing it. Feel free to reply back with the answer!

Lister

Posted 2016-08-01T08:56:40.837

Reputation: 1 185

Is this really realistic? I mean the program has to write 1.3 TB in a few seconds. IMHO the HDD is too slow for this. – Kyle – 2016-08-01T10:46:04.620

To that extent no, but if a program is hogging usage to the HDD it would still show. – Lister – 2016-08-01T10:48:15.733

I've done more investigation and found out that the system itself (PID 4) is causing the stop by very high disk activity. It seems that the system tries to write a lot to the System Volume Information folder. I'm wondering because I've disabled the system restore. However I've read that Microsoft Security Essentials automatically creates a system restore point before an update of the definitions is done. Maybe that is causing the stop. Currently I'm not sure what really causes the issue and how to solve it. – Kyle – 2016-08-07T16:31:11.000

Resource manager should go into detail as to exacly which system service is doing it. – Lister – 2016-08-07T20:24:35.650

Asked: 2016-08-01T08:56:40.837

Viewed: 47 times

Active: 2016-08-01T10:14:04.547