# Constant 100% disk highest active time making system unresponsive



## Counterfeit (Oct 17, 2010)

Hello all,

Recently my computer has been going extremely unresponsive for extensive periods of time, due to what appears to be, according to resource monitor, 100% highest active time on my hard drive (Shown here).

The periods of the system going unresponsive occur randomly and last around 10 minutes, or up to an hour. During these periods the hard drive appears to sound louder and making noise in a pattern that follows the graph in the images above (louder when the blue line hits top, silent when bottom). 

Today i got a message from 'Intel SMART' telling me a hard drive was failing. The computer is still in warranty for a few months although i have no idea if this is a hardware or software issue.

Is there a way I can tell if this is definitely a hardware problem, and if its actually a software / windows 7 issue, what's wrong?


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## DT Roberts (Jun 22, 2009)

Hello and welcome to TSF.

Download and test with the correct hard drive test for your manufacturer: http://carrona.org/hddiag.html


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## Counterfeit (Oct 17, 2010)

as much of an inconvenience as it is, I don't think my computer handles burning ISO's too well; so i am unable to run the diagnostics checker supplied in the link above, What else can I do?


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## DT Roberts (Jun 22, 2009)

What is the make and model of the computer? Some computers have built-in diagnostic tests. If worst comes to worst, try using the test via bootable USB flash drive: http://www.intowindows.com/bootable-usb/

EDIT: Sorry, wrong link! http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/243423-32-image-flash


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## MoreBeer (Oct 18, 2010)

SMART is a hard drive monitoring tool. It runs at the hardware level. If it's giving you an error, it means your hard drive is likely on its last legs. If you have no backups, make them right away. Once you're getting SMART warnings, it's possible you're only a few days away from catastrophic hard drive failure.

Also, talk to your vendor. If you tell them you're getting SMART warnings, it should be warrantied... though no vendor I'm aware of will cover your data under warranty. To fix the problem, they'll probably replace your hard drive with a new one containing a default image. That backup is absolutely essential.

I am not a certified tech or anything, but everything I can see indicates this is definitely a hardware problem, not software. My guess is you have Intel software running that is reporting the hard drive's impending failure. Reconfiguring or updating your windows software will not help. Running diagnostics may give you a better idea what's going on, but if you can't run them I suggest you assume that your hard disk is about to fail.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.[/URL]


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## jcgriff2 (Sep 30, 2007)

Agree - backup files you wish to save to an external USB HDD.

Replace internal HDD.

Install Windows 7.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

`


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## guidovanhumbeec (Nov 13, 2010)

disabling prefetch see : [url]http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms940847(v=WinEmbedded.5).aspx[/URL] seems to solve this problem with me

Regards


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