My HP Elitebook 840 G2 is constantly using all its hard drive space even though it's not supposed to be full.
My HP Elitebook 840 G2 is constantly using all its hard drive space even though it's not supposed to be full.
Hello! Here are the details for my HP Elitebook 840 G2. It has 16 GB of RAM, an Intel i5 processor that runs at about 2.20 GHz, and uses Windows 10 Pro 22H2 on a hard drive with 1 TB of storage. I noticed that my computer ran slower after restarting this week because I'm a mobile developer. When I tried to upgrade using the installation media, it was very slow and took almost a day. After upgrading, there was no improvement, and when I opened Task Manager, the hard drive usage hit 100%, while the RAM and CPU were lower. I looked up this problem online and followed some steps: I turned off telemetry in Group Policy, turned off Superfetch, reset the virtual memory settings to 'No paging file', ran a full scan with Kaspersky, enabled the high-performance power plan, and started rebuilding my search index. When I ran chkdsk (only), it said there were no problems on either of the two partitions. I also deleted some temporary files, changed File Explorer settings so it doesn't always search for file names and contents, turned off CompatTelRunner in Task Scheduler, and didn't fix StorAHCI.sys because my PC uses iaStorA.sys instead. One more thing: Hard Disk Sentinel told me that the hard drive health was getting worse while I ran a full scan with Kaspersky, but chkdsk didn't find any issues. There are some links to check the rest of this stuff and see if it's fixed on Windows 10.
It could be both things, but if it's a hardware problem, there is only a short window where everything gets broken before you lose them all. You can't just copy the operating system over to fix this. So, I still think getting a new drive is best. Specifically an SSD because it's about ten times faster than an old hard drive. When you get your SSD started up with the OS on it, you can say for sure there isn't a hardware problem left. If things are still acting weird (and that part is doubtful), then fix the software stuff without worrying that the new drive might break again. A slow-down in your HDDs is often a sign they're dying. I've had my own hard drives die and I could tell it by two things: when using the drive was at 100% and the defrag (cleaning up the disk) took much longer than normal. Normal defrag time used to be about two hours, but when the drive was failing, it took about seventeen hours. Nowadays, I don't use hard drives anymore...
It feels like a dead hard disk. That's why the usage is at 100% and the health drops so quickly in Hard Disk Sentinel. The fix is to replace it with a new drive. A 2.5" or M.2 SSD would be much faster for reading and writing than an old HDD. If you choose a Samsung drive, use the Samsung Data Migration Tool to copy your whole operating system from the old hard disk onto the new one while still keeping it bootable.
It could be either thing. But if it's a hardware problem, the time is short before everything goes away. (You can't just copy the whole OS over.) So I still think getting a new drive makes sense. Specifically an SSD, since it's about ten times faster than a regular hard drive. Once your SSD is set up with a bootable operating system on it, you'll know if it was really hardware or software. If things are still broken (which I don't believe), then fix the software side instead of worrying that the drive might fail right now. A slow-down in an HDD is usually a sign it's dying. I've seen this happen to me and noticed two signs: when the HDD used 100% of its power and defragging took way longer than usual. Normally, defrag takes about two hours, but when the drive was failing, it took almost seventeen hours. Nowadays, I don't use regular hard drives in my computers. Instead, I use M.2 NVMe SSDs for my OS and 2.5" SATA SSDs for storing data or backups.
Health got worse after HDSentinel went online, then stayed flat once I turned it off. It started at a full 100%, dropped to 88% while the tool was running, and only fell further before hitting the low numbers of 45%, 25%, and finally 17%.
So, what do you think? Which of the two things is more likely to be wrong? Is it the program that was written to read information from the hard drive, or just the hard drive itself when it outputs those numbers? As a software developer, you should know how bugs happen in code. They are usually made by mistakes in writing the code, OR they come from bad data given by the machine. A mistake in code is very unlikely compared to bad data coming from the actual drive. Since drives are physical things with moving parts, they break down often more than software does. At the end of the day, until you swap out the hardware, you cannot rule out that the hard drive broke on its own. I suggest replacing it sooner rather than later. Unless installing a fresh operating system is something you don't want to do right now, once your drive completely dies and starts losing all your data, then act.
The ST1000LM035 is an SMR hard drive. Putting windows on it won't work well. Better to upgrade to a solid-state drive (SSD) instead. Also, your drive is moving more sectors around very fast. This means it's dying already. You should just replace the drive right away. Don't do that at all. Doing this will cause virtual memory errors later on for you.