Windows 8.1 Hard drive constantly access but Task manager only shows low usage (< 5%)

Question

I have been running Windows 8.1 for a year and within the last couple weeks I noticed the disk drive constantly being accessed. However, the disk light on the machine is barely coming on so I looked at the task manager and the disk is not that busy. I am trying to figure out why I can hear constant disk drive activity but Windows 8.1 does not seem to think it is busy.

Is there another way to check disk access or activity?

I have tried stopping Windows Search Service, Superfetch, and something called ExpressCache but the disk just keeps sounding like it is being accessed.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Try using Resource Monitor (resmon.exe) instead. It gives much better details and can break down the specific services running under servicehosts. If that doesn't show you anything useful, your next step would be perfmon.exe and monitor the PhysicalDisk counters.

Answer 2

To add a bit to nithins' answer (I'd have made this a comment but it won't fit): From Task Manager's Performance tab, click "Open Resource Monitor". Or, from a Run or command prompt, type resmon. From there, click the Disk tab.

The upper pane allows you to sort processes by disk activity, and the lower pane allows you to see which files are experiencing the most IOs.

Note that it is not unheard-of for high disk activity to not be associated with much CPU activity. It takes very little CPU time to make the disk do IOs.

Answer 3

I had the same problem on Windows 7. In my case it was Windows Event Log Service.

You can try disabling it and see if it helps. If yes, you can enable it again and perform more precise set up by turning off different logs, as described here for Microsoft-Windows-Reliability-Analysis-Engine: Windows 7: Why does my Hard Drive Activity Light Constantly Blink ?

Answer 4

This could indicate that your drive is going bad. If the firmware on your drive is recovering or reallocating sectors, that would sound like normal activity, but would not show up on any activity monitor (since the drive does this without involving your computer's CPU or memory).

I would use a utility that can check the SMART status on the hard drive. If it indicates read errors, there's your problem.

Another way to verify this would be to shut down the computer, unplug the drive's data cable (so it only has power), and then turn your computer back on. The hard drive will spin up, but the computer (obviously) will not boot. If you still hear it being accessed then this is definitely what's going on.