How to Fix 100% Disk Usage in Windows 10

100% disk usage is a rather widespread issue on Windows 10. It slows your PC down to a crawl. High disk utilization can be caused by various reasons. In some cases 100% usage can be normal (for example after installing updates or during video rendering), in other – it can be a consequence of an issue.

It can take up to 20 minutes to boot and when the desktop finally loads up the disk is constantly running at 99-100% and never dropping down. This means it is unreal to work on such PC. High disk utilization problem can also appear on other versions of Windows as well. Here are various solutions that will help you to fix 100% disk usage in Windows 10.

Fix Windows 10 100% disk usage in Task Manager

Method 1: Fix 100% Disk Usage due to Google Chrome and Skype

Disable prediction service in Chrome:

1.In Google Chrome, click the three-dot icon at the top right corner and choose Settings.

2.Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Advanced.

3.In the Privacy and Security category, make sure  Use a prediction service to load pages more quickly is turned off.

Give write previleges to skype.exe:

1.Exit the Skype app.

2.Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\.

3.Right-click Skype.exe and select Properties.

4.Go to Security tab and click Edit

5.Click ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES and tick the Allow checkbox for Write. Then click Apply, then OK to save your change.

Method 2: Antivirus can be the cause of 100% disk usage

1.Do not install more than one protection. Exception is embedded Windows Defender that will turn off automatically as soon as you install third-party Antivirus.

2.Turn off scheduled scans.

3.Try disabling your Antivirus.

4.Try to uninstall Antivirus program. Sometimes anti-virus programs burden disk a lot. Watch in the Task Manager how strong is your disk load. In our case Bitdefender was the cause of the permanent 100% disk utilization on Windows 10.

5.Disable Windows Defender, reboot, install your former Antivirus

Method 3:Perform a disk check

1.Click Windows key+ X and then choose Command Prompt (Admin)

2.Click Yes on the prompt window.

3.Now type following command in command prompt and hit enter:

chkdsk.exe /f /r

4.Now type Y to confirm the disk check during the next restart.

Now during next restart, disk check utility will run. Now check the disk usage again in Task Manager to see if the problem has been fixed.

Method 3:Disable Windows Search

1.Press Win key+R, type services.msc Hit Enter:

2.Now, look for Windows Search in the list. Right-click the Windows Search service and go to Properties.

3.Under the General tab, set the Startup type to Disabled.

4.Click Ok to save and Restart computer. Check the disk usage again in Task Manager

Method 4: Disable SuperFetch

1.Press Windows key+ X, Choose Command Prompt (Admin).

2.Click Yes at the User Account Control prompt. The command prompt will once again display. Type in the following command:

net.exe stop superfetch

3.Hit Enter on your keyboard.

Now, you can wait for sometime to see if there change in the high disk usage in the Task Manager. You can also run a simple disk check on your system.

Note: Use the command to enable it:

net.exe start superfetch

Method 5:Turn off Tips about Windows

Windows 10 Settings includes an option to display tips and tricks. Some users have linked it to the disk usage problem. You can disable tips by visiting Settings > System > Notifications & actions. Turn off Get tips, tricks, and suggestions as you use Windows toggle button.

Method 6:Fix your StorAHCI.sys driver

Another cause for your hard drive going full capacity is a firmware bug in Microsoft AHCI driver called StorAHCI.sys. It’s known to cause the 100% hard disk problem and even BSODs in Windows. Follow these steps to disable Message-Signaled Interrupts support for the driver and fix the issue:

1.Pressing Windows key+ X and choose Device Manager.

2.Extend the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers entry in the list.Right-click Standard SATA AHCI Controller and go to Properties.

3.Under Driver tab, click Driver Details. If it shows C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\storahci.sys in the Drivers files field, then your system might be affected due to the bug.

4.Now click OK and go to the Details tab.

5.From the drop-down menu, select Device Instance Path. Make note of the path, starting from VEN_.

6.Now, open Windows Registry, press Windows Key+ R and Type regedit.

Navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Enum\PCI\

Look for the value you saw in the Properties and expand the relevant key.Make sure you expand the correct key.

7.Once you have found the correct AHCI Controller using the given string, navigate to:

Device Parameters\Interrupt Management\MessageSignaledInterruptProperties

8.Here, double-click MSISupported and change it’s value to 0 (means turn off the MSI).

9.Click OK to save the value. Close Windows Registry and restart your computer. Then check your computer’s disk usage

Method 7:Reset Virtual Memory

1.Press Windows key+ Pause/ Break key. Choose Advanced System Settings on the left panel.

2.Go to the Advanced tab, then click Settings.

3.Go to the Advanced tab again, and choose Change… in the Virtual memory section.

4.Ensure the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives checkbox is NOT ticked.

5.Select your windows drive (the hard drive or partition that has Windows installed on it – usually C:), and enter an Initial size and Maximum size for your virtual memory:

• Initial size – This value varies, depending on your computer. If you’re not sure what value to use, just enter whatever the number is in the Recommended category.
• Maximum size – Don’t set this value too high. It should be about 1.5 times the size of your physical RAM. e.g. A PC with 4 GB (4096 MB) of RAM should have no more than about 6,144 MB virtual memory (4096 MB x 1.5).

Once you’ve entered your virtual memory values, click Set, then click OK to continue.

6.Clear all your computer’s ‘temp’ files.
Press Windows key+ R, then type temp and hit Enter. This will invoke Windows Explorer with your Temp folder open, showing you all the temp files on your computer.

7.Select all the files in the Temp folder and delete them.

8.Check your computer’s disk usage:

So, these were some of the ways which can help you fix the 100% disk usage error in Microsoft Windows. These might not be fool-proof solutions, but they could be useful.